Stan Shiroma wins the 1977 Fallnationals in Seattle in this Lidtke & Zeller dragster
The stripes up the sides are a bit overdone, but they work with the color scheme. I do like the red background near where the driver sits. Is the split down the middle of LIDTKE supposed to be like that, or is that a mistake caused by the body panel design? I’m going to guess its part of the design. It’s a C scheme.
Don Prudhomme’s 1972 Hot Wheels wedge gears up for a run
The paint scheme itself is really good. The dark red with the white stripe design works very well, and looks great. The car itself is kind of odd. Did Hot Wheels design it? It looks like something that would be sold as a Hot Wheels car. This actually looks like many future tempts to streamline top fuel dragsters. These attempts came back to haunt many who drove them. This paint scheme earns an A.
Gary Beck won the 1972 US Nationals in his top fuel dragster
The NHRA Top Fuel month starts with this Gary Back example from 1972. The blue looks really good, but the white stripe design isn’t great. It’s overdone. It’s visually distracting, and ht doesn’t make the gold and black logos look that good. Granted this was the early 1970’s, but it could be a lot better. I give it a B-
Andrea de Cesaris, #33 refreshes his 1991 7Up Jordan-Ford 191 at the US Grand Prix
Green is another color that can be hit or miss, and 7Up had a great shade of green at that time. Green and blue can be great, or it can be a disaster. This shade of blue not only looks good, but works very well with the 7Up green. The thin white stripe between the two works very well as well, so the Formula One quarter of Throwback Thursday ends with a solid A scheme.
Manfred Winkelhock, pushes on in his 1983 #9 ATS-BMW D6
Ugh, another case of a bad shade of yellow, terrible but unlike many of the other schemes I have discussed, this one is mixed in with a needlessly bad design that does more to highlight the bad color scheme than it should. The generic car numbers don’t work here either, and what in the world is going on with that design behind the side numbers? It’s ugly, and serves no purpose. This scheme deserves an F.
Mario Andretti’s 1980 #11 Essex Lotus-Ford 81cat the San Marino Grand Prix
I like the addition of metallic silver to the red and blue scheme. The logo placement is really good. Essex had a 1980’s futuristic logo, and it works well with the rest of the scheme. Also, did Lotus eliminate the front wing? I thought this might just be a car after repairs but the Lotus behind it is also similarly designed. I’ve seen photos where it does and photos where it does not have a front wing, so I’m guessing it ran part of the season without a front wing. I give it a B+
Patrick Depailler, sports an early in-car camera in his 1978 #4 ELF Tyrrell-Ford 008
The blue and white color scheme works very well here. I do think that the ELF OIL logos are a bit too big. The FIRST NATIONAL CITY TRAVELERS CHECKS logo looks good, if a little large. Also, it’s 2017, do people still use travelers checks? I also love seeing a car that is designed to be as aerodynamically perfect, but has a large camera that wrecks that aerodynamically. I give it a B+
Carlos Reutemann races at Monaco in his 1976 #7 Martini Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT45
Red works well for a race car, and this shade of red works well. The Martini stripes are very good as a design. The stripes look good on the sides, tail, and front. I also like the diagonally positioned number on the sides. The plain white stripes do look a bit out of business here, but it’s not as bad as some stripes that could be mentioned. It’s a good A- scheme.
Patrick Depailler’s 1976 six wheel #4 ELF Tyrrell-Ford P34 races in the rain in Japan
A good shade of dark blue works well with the white and yellow lettering of the car. I also like that there are two vertical stripes up the sides. What I don’t get is why the car has six wheels. Supposedly, the requirements for the front wing design meant that if teams wanted to keep the wheels within the boundary of the wing, small tires would be needed. Since these small tires didn’t contact the racetrack enough, two extra tires were added to the front. The car did find some success, but the six wheel idea eventually spread to the rear wheels, and then was eliminated altogether. I’m not grading aerodynamic deicing, I’m grading paint schemes, and I’ll give it an A.
Ronnie Peterson races at Zandvort in his 1973 #2 John Player Special Lotus-Ford 72E
Black and metallic gold is a great color combination. Add to that a simple design, black with gold lettering, as well as a simple gold stripe around the driver compartment, and you have a tried and tested recipe for a sold A+ paint scheme.
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