50 Greatest liveries of all time.

[albteman015]

Words by Jack Chinelli

With all the corporate slathering that's come to define professional motorsports, it's hard to imagine a team really giving much thought to the paint and decals—known as the livery—that adorn its car. Typically, if the main sponsor's logo is silver and red, it pretty much dictates that the car will be silver and red. And unfortunately, some teams don't put much more thought it into than that. However, there are a few teams that push through the drudgery and come up with cool designs that fans will remember as much as the performance of the cars themselves. Sometimes the design marks a special occasion or cause, or a new owner, or is just new for newness' sake. It's because of these that we decided to look through all of our favorite race teams and compile this list of the most creative designs. From old Formula 1 teams to short-lived Dakar Rally cars, check out the 50 Greatest Race Liveries of All Time.
http://best.complex.com/lists/The-50-Greatest-Race-Car-Liveries/


Just want to see what GTP's opnion is on this list. They left out some really good ones to be honest.

 

[The Outlaw]

Nice find 👍

I'll have to look through them all later. Hope they didn't leave out the Gulf liveries

 

[Northstar]

Nice find 👍

I'll have to look through them all later. Hope they didn't leave out the Gulf liveries

Sadly they only feature one, they also only feature 1 Rothmans livery, neither are my favorite versions.

Number one is wrong though!!!! I would say it's top 10, not #1.

 

[McLaren]

I'm a little surprised none of the F1 GTRs made that list. I think Fina, Davidoff, or even the Ueno Clinic could have made Top 50.

 

[astrosdude91]

The Calsonic livery is missing, but other than that and the one's mentioned above, it seems pretty complete.

 

[Roo]

Missing the Jordan 191 7up livery and Jeff Gordan's 24 NASCAR. My favourite 917 has always been the 1970 Attwood/Herman car:

 

[Ardius]

BAR 001 555/Lucky Strike split livery as #16 . Shouldn't that livery be on the 50 Worst Liveries Ever?
Even worse....the Honda RA107 livery?!!??!?!!?!?
The Stewart livery wasn't that great...and the Jordan liveries really should be higher.
JPS Lotus is also too far down the list, easily top 10 material.

Missing:
2000 - 2002 Orange Arrows
1994 - 1997 Rothmans Williams F1
Canon/Camel/Elf/Sega Williams F1 (1985 - 1993)
Rothmans Porsche 956
Davidoff McLaren F1 GTRs
Lotus 49
Renault RE40
Virgin Racing VR-01
Castrol Jaguar XJR-8/9/12 (not Silk Cut colours)

Otherwise, its a fairly obvious and decent list. The writer seems to love red cars though...

 

[ghostrider135]

Wheres the peugeot 205 t16 evo 2, The classic white with red spot Honda F1 livery, Ford Escort REPSOL livery ? Team AUTOBACS MRS ? theyve missed a few special ones out on that list way too many american touring cars on it

 

[daan]

He put a couple of the liveries on the wrong car.

He had the Rothmans livery on the 959 when it should be on the 962.

And the Jagermeister livery should be on a 935, failing that a 911 or 956, but certainly not on a BMW touring car.

 

[ghostrider135]

He put a couple of the liveries on the wrong car.

He had the Rothmans livery on the 959 when it should be on the 962.

What about the mk2 Ford Escort rally car , Malcolm Wilson i think

 

[GTPorsche]

Some of those pictures didn't match the livery that was being mentioned. 👎

 

[Pupik]

I think they only needed about 25-30 for a truly complete list, but felt that 50 was more "comprehensive". Admittedly, he hit most of my favorites.

Single colors aren't exactly imaginative, though...although they at least mentioned the two 1970 Porsche 917s.

 

[Alex.]

Nuff said.

 

[albteman015]

BAR 001 555/Lucky Strike split livery as #16 . Shouldn't that livery be on the 50 Worst Liveries Ever?
Even worse....the Honda RA107 livery?!!??!?!!?!?
The Stewart livery wasn't that great...and the Jordan liveries really should be higher.
JPS Lotus is also too far down the list, easily top 10 material.

Missing:
2000 - 2002 Orange Arrows
1994 - 1997 Rothmans Williams F1
Canon/Camel/Elf/Sega Williams F1 (1985 - 1993)
Rothmans Porsche 956
Davidoff McLaren F1 GTRs
Lotus 49
Renault RE40
Virgin Racing VR-01
Castrol Jaguar XJR-8/9/12 (not Silk Cut colours)

Otherwise, its a fairly obvious and decent list. The writer seems to love red cars though...

lol . Yea , I didn't think it was the greatest list ever either but it did have some nice ones.

 

[lbsf1]

How is it not possible to have a list of famous livery without.

and
of course ferrari.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Um, did you read the article? The Gulf liveries were number two and the Ferrari liveries number one. They just used the Ford GT40 Gulf livery because it was the original; otherwise, they'd have a dozen Gulf liveries throughout it and the article would be pretty boring.

 

[-Fred-]

I disagree with at least 35 of those. It should actually be a list of the most iconic liveries, since the ones that left a visual impact upon first sight are the ones that are standing at the top, generally because of the way they were driven. Let's be honest, the 555 Subarus, Marlboro McLarens and Rothmans Porsches probably wouldn't be near the top if it wasn't for the fact they utterly dominated their respective sports and eras, since, let's be honest, the 555 livery wasn't anything spectacular design wise, Marlboro was outstandingly garish with the fluorescent orange, and Rothmans was very understated with the gold and dark blue, not something you would have picked up in the middle of the pack as they were barrelling down Mulsannes, for instance.

 

[Ardius]

I think the Rothmans design is decent enough, its more the white with blue that makes it stand out, the gold + red stripes merely add a bit extra at slow speed. Kind of like the 1997 Arrows A18 has a nice scheme which you can pick out easily (though it gets a little confusing when its near the Williams ).

I guess you have to really sort out what exactly you are looking for - something thats a nice design, something that is visually effective at high speed or simply iconic colours as you mentioned. I think a list that mixed in a few of each could be considered "greatest" as long as the writer admitted that the iconic ones were included more for history rather than actual design.

Otherwise, there aren't many good designs...as usually there is only so much you can do with a sponsorship logo/scheme. Sponsorship isn't picked for how good it will look on the car unfortunately .

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Sponsorship isn't picked for how good it will look on the car unfortunately .

But at the same time, there's a huge difference between the Williams/Rothmans liveries and the Renault/ING ones. If certain that Renault could have made some quality stuff with ING if they'd tried.

Anyway, as for the actual list, well, I'd probably make a few changes. This year's BMW Art Car would be much higher, whilst a few of them - like that Union Camaro - wouldn't be on the list at all. The Virgin VR-01 would be a deifnite addition, as would the Lotus T127. I'd probably also add Dick Johnson's #17 Shell Helix Falcon.

 

[Antti-san]

Like Ardius said, what is the Honda RA107 doing there? Otherwise it's a pretty good list.

 

[albteman015]

The problem of this list was that they used the wrong examples for some of the companies. The jagermeister livery was on the wrong car in my opinion. Maybe the writers included the liveries that they thought were special to them. Or that they had some favorite teams growing up that they felt needed to be on the list. It's just someones opinion after all. One that I would have liked to see on the list is the compuware c5r. I love that livery

 

[Small_Fryz]

I guess it also depends on your region.

Show these to any Australian Motor racing fan and its instantly recognisable.

 

[BrutherSuperior]

I always though this was a pretty car:

Same with this:

...and...

 

[Liquid]

A few from the world of the British Touring Car Championship's golden age

 

[albteman015]

Oh man! Touring cars 👍

 

[gogatrs]

The Pink Pig and Hippie Car should have been number 1 and 2.

 

[Azure Flare]

It mentioned Corvette Racing's 2007 Laguna Seca livery. Personally, I prefer this one

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I reckon the Team Exim China Corvette(s) (one is still yet to compete) being run in the GT1 championship look fantastic:

 

[mPWRD]

Disappointed to see Corvette Racing yellow at #15... that should have been so much higher.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

This isn't about GT1 results. It's about the liveries of racing cars. You can find dedicated GT championship racing here.