There have been some truly sensational racing liveries over the years. Some have been ridiculous, some have been outright stunning, others have been horrific. The eight I’ve highlighted here, however, go down as the most iconic racing liveries of all time.
8 – Lancia Alitalia
This white, green and red paintwork featured on a WRC legend – the Lancia Stratos.
The Stratos was the first car ever to be designed and built specifically for the World Rally Championship and it silenced people who questioned it’s use of rear-wheel drive by winning the championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976.
7 – Quattro Sport
The Audi Quattro is a rallying icon, as is the white and yellow livery it wore.
Introduced to the World Rally Championship in the early 80s, it changed the sport forever with Audi’s revolutionary all-wheel drive setup. The Quattro S1 also wore the white and yellow paintwork and won the championship twice, with Hannu Mikkola in 1983 and then Stig Blomqvist in 1985.
It only had a short stint in the sport but it had more of an influence than any car before it.
6 – BMW M Power
We’ve all seen it – the white paint with the red and blue three-stripe pattern. It has been worn by so many incredible BMW racing cars.
My personal favourite has to be the 3.0 CSL, one of which won its class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Other quality cars to wear the iconic livery include the M1, the E30 M3 and, more recently, the M6 GT3.
5 – Marlboro F1
The red and white Marlboro F1 livery is one of the most recognisable F1 liveries of all time.
Marlboro McLarens driven by Niki Lauda and Ayrton Senna won the F1 Championship in 1984 and 1991 respectively. Another legend associated with the Marlboro colours is Michael Schumacher, whose Ferrari wore the livery in 1997.
4 – Subaru Impreza WRC ‘555’
When you think of Colin McRae, the blue and yellow Impreza with its gold wheels immediately jumps out at you.
The Subaru Impreza wore this livery on its way to win the WRC championship in 1995, 1996 and 1997 – the earliest of which was McRae’s only ever championship win.
3 – Martini Racing
This is where Porsche, and more specifically the 917, start to dominate the list.
The white, red and blue of Martini Racing was worn by the Porsche 917 K that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1971. It has also been used on other famous Porsche’s such as the 911 Carrera RSR Turbo.
In the 1980s, it featured on the Lancia Delta in its most successful period in the World Rally Championship. Other cars commonly associated with the Martini paintwork include the Escort Cosworth, Colin McRae’s Ford Focus and the 2014 Williams F1 car.
2 – Porsche ‘Pink Pig’
The ‘Pink Pig’ Porsche 917/20 also featured in the 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans but didn’t do quite as well as the Martini Racing 917. In fact, it didn’t even finish the race.
Until recently, that was the only time the pink livery had been used by Porsche. In 2018, it was revived to celebrate the manufacturer’s 70th anniversary and featured on the 911 RSR that won it’s class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
One customer even decided to have his 918 Spyder wrapped in the iconic livery.
1 – Gulf Racing
This is the one. The livery that springs to mind as soon as I’m asked “what is your favourite racing livery?”.
The iconic blue and orange Gulf livery was made famous in the 60s by the Ford GT40 and the Porsche 917. Between those two cars, Gulf Racing won three world championships and claimed three outright victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
That didn’t make the livery iconic, though. Steve McQueen did that driving the Gulf Racing Porsche 917 in the 1971 film, ‘Le Mans‘. That’s iconic.
It has since featured on some stunning racing cars. A couple of examples that stand out are the McLaren F1 GTR and the Aston Martin DBR9.
So that’s my list of the most iconic racing liveries of all time!
What do you think of my choices? Do you agree or are there others that you would have included? Let us know in the comments section below or via our Facebook and Twitter pages.
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