Saturday
Mar052011
Moment of Smoking Zen
Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 11:29PM The Eddie Irvine video down below reminded me that at Suzuka in 1993, The Ligier of Martin Brundle had one of the prettiest sponsor liveries in F1 history. The abstracted "Gitanes" cigarette paint scheme took over the whole car and the effect was utterly beautiful while partially obscuring the brand name in keeping with the ever-tightening tobacco sponsorship laws of the early 90s. For sheer purity of form and design, you can't really beat the F1 cars from 1990-94. That was when Ferraris were still almost completely crimson red, McLarens looked like a Marlboro packet, and who can forget the first year of Rothmans sponsorship on the Williams-Renault?;)
tagged 1993, F1, Gitanes, Grand Prix, Japanese, Ligier, Martin Brundle, Suzuka, tobacco in Moment of Zen
1993, F1, Gitanes, Grand Prix, Japanese, Ligier, Martin Brundle, Suzuka, tobacco in Moment of Zen
Reader Comments (1)
You're right: a really beautiful graphic -- one of the few to improve on unadorned national racing colours. Today's F1 cars look a mess, don't look like cars, and one can't see the drivers either. I can't be the only petrolhead who thinks the look of the past sponsor-laden decade or more has been pretty ugly.