la993 uk

Somebody asked me the other day why Yellow was a popular Porsche colour ?

I said that Speed Yellow was a 'traditional' porsche colour but didn't know why.
(apart from the fact it looks cool)

I Know Italian racing cars were traditionally Red and German cars silver, is this a similar thing?

LA993

Vinny '98 3.8 C2S

Actually, I don't think it is that popular. Silver/black/red and probably other colors outsell speed yellow by a wide margin.

It does seem like you see a disproportionate amount though. It's probably because the color stands out so much.

To your other point, I don't think there is any historic significance to the color.

Tim Comeau

Yellow is far from a traditional Porsche color. The colors they have had for many years(look at the sales brochures) are guards red, silver, black, grand prix white. In my opinion, speed yellow is too mustardy. There are 3 RS Americas that the factory painted in Ferrari's "fly yellow." Now, THAT is a kick *** yellow. Porsche, MB, Auto Union all used to have silver factory race cars. And then sponsorship came along........Cheers!

pig4bill

The legendary story was that the silver color came about because of a race where the team sanded all the paint off in a hurry to make weight. Can't remember if it was Auto Union or Merc.

PogueMoHone

It was Mercedes!

Sam N

Mercedes! "Silver Arrow"

A930Rocket

I don't know what race(s) or series it was years ago, but basically each country had its own color years ago, i.e. Germany=silver, UK=green, Italy=red. So I'm thinking that the color of the car did have some historical signifigance. And as Tim says, sponsoship...

Jim

Vinny '98 3.8 C2S

Here's a good link to the answer on racing colors.

Lists all of the colors for competing nations.

<a href="http://www.miata.net/misc/racecolor.html" target="_blank">Auto Racing colors</a>

Ruairidh

[quote]Originally posted by Jim Bell:
<strong>I don't know what race(s) or series it was years ago, but basically each country had its own color years ago, i.e. Germany=silver,

Jim</strong><hr></blockquote>

Interestingly Germany's "official" racing color was white. The silver came about, I believe, with the pre-WW2 Mercs and Auto Unions which had unpainted alloy bodies. Silver does look cooler than white (IMHO)

richard glickel.

Back in the 1930's the Auto Unions ran in their unpainted aluminum sheet metal. This was especially true of the Mercedes and AU's that were trying to set land speed records running on a stretch of the brand new autobahn (I think Berndt Rosenmyer drove for MB, so did Rudy Carriciola, not sure who drove the Porches, err, Auto Unions).

I think also that after the war (WWII), the Mercedes 300s ran as silver cars at LeMans in the early 1950's. I guess at some point, the car color thing went by the boards. Witness the differing colors of Porsches at LeMans over the years. It was a nice tradition.

Richard

ked

As I recall (from books & history shows) silver became MB's defacto racing color when stripping off the white paint got their GP car under the weight limit, circa mid '30s.

Rosemeyer was the great Auto Union GP driver who died breaking the WLSR on a closed section of the Autobahn. He was a driver of extraordinary talent, like Nuvolari, Fangio, Clark, & Senna.

993RS

The color of the very first Porsche prototype (356/1, cabriolet, 1948, Gmünd) was yellow and not silver, as many people think. It was also had a mid-engine configuration, and not yet a rear-engined configuration. I found this out from the Porsche Stuttgart archivist for a discussion thread on this topic in the off topic forum.

Olli Snellman

[quote]The color of the very first Porsche prototype (356/1, cabriolet, 1948, Gmünd) was yellow and not silver, as many people think <hr></blockquote>

If that is true, then #1 has been repainted silver.From the black&white pics taken by 1948 it's hard to tell is it silver or yellow.

993RS

It has indeed been repainted silver. If you go to the Porsche museum, you will see it silver. I was told that it was repainted in the early 50's after an accident.

Vinny '98 3.8 C2S

Per Phil: The color of the very first Porsche prototype (356/1, cabriolet, 1948, Gmünd) was yellow and not silver, as many people think.... It has indeed been repainted silver. If you go to the Porsche museum, you will see it silver. I was told that it was repainted in the early 50's after an accident.

Do you have any reliable references to this? Everything I've read and can find related to 356/1 shows a silver car. There is no mention of it ever being yellow. I also can't imagine that the Porsche museum would paint the car anything other than its original color.