When was the last time you saw a very good racing livery? Think about it for a minute. A great stand-alone livery that will likely be looked back on as iconic in fifty years time, one which isn’t a throwback or homage, one which isn’t only a mishmash of black, white, and red — that’s a real rarity lately. I’ll say that it’s good of Ford so as to add some vivid colours to the IMSA grid this summer, but it surely would have been quite a bit cooler if the brand new Mustang racer had been given a correct racing livery that isn’t only a reminder of all of the times Mustang racers had good liveries. This is lame, and should you look deep in your heart, you’ll comprehend it to be true, too.
Ford isn’t the just one to have done this recently, as Porsche did an analogous “remember when?” throwback for its then-new 963 prototype at Le Mans. It was lame then, and it’s lame now. Stop half-assing your designs and make a brand new livery that fans can hook up with. This grab bag of colours is muddled faux nostalgia, and it won’t be recognizable on merch or models. Why are the Motorcraft livery or the yellow and black hockey-stick-striped Bud Moore Trans Am Mustangs remembered? Not only were they successful race cars, however the liveries were easy, iconic, and definable.
The Mustang GT3 is a very cool automotive, if not exactly up to the mark yet. Ford should absolutely honor this latest extension of Mustang racing history by giving it a glance all its own, something that may stand the test of time.
Ford, in contrast, wants you to recollect all of the times that it built winning Mustangs up to now. This automotive wears the coats of its forebears like elite socialites donning the skins of animals as evening outerwear.
Ford says the red is representative of the Alan Mann Racing 1-2 finish on the 1964 Tour de France. The Wimbledon White and Guardsman Blue of the enduring original Shelby GT350 are present, in fact, showing Jerry Titus’ 1965 to 1967 SCCA B-Prod championship sweep. The “School Bus Yellow” Boss 302 Mustangs of Parnelli Jones and George Follmer dominated the 1970 Trans-Am season, and get the left front fender of this automotive. The 1981 Motorcraft Zakspeed automotive represented a brand new era of Mustang in motorsport, while the 1997 Roush-entered All Sport green and black monster won 11 consecutive Trans-Am victories with Tommy Kendall on the wheel.
Ford’s pair of IMSA Mustang GT3s will wear this livery on the Laguna Seca and Detroit rounds of the championship this summer. It’ll be nice to see some color in the sector, but I can’t see this hanging out within the history books. It just feels disingenuous. Maybe you disagree. Maybe I’ll be proven incorrect. Who knows?
Credit : jalopnik.com
