345 Ferraris shouldn't be red

i am told by a classic car fan that your friend is incorrect.he says le mans was around before ferrari and when it started the only colour stipulation was that cars of a certain country had to be a certain colour,for example-green for english cars.

Your leg is being royally pulled. The LeMans 24 hour race predates Lotus, Ferrari and Lamborghini:

1923 - The first Le Mans was held in 26/27 May
1929 - Ferrari forms Scuderia Ferrari, taking over the old Alfa-Romeo racing team, races Alfa Romeo cars.
1940 - Ferrari leaves Alfa Romeo and forms Auto-Avio Costruzioni Ferrari
1948 - First Lotus car is built, based upon a 1930 Austin Seven saloon. Used successfully for competition by Colin Chapman.
1964 - Lamborghini sells its first car.

As far as I can tell, Lamborghini have never raced at LeMans, Ferrari didn't win a race until 1949, Lotus didn't race at Le Mans until 1955 and have never won.

The big names at Le Mans are:

Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Jaguar, Mercedes, Ferrari, Ford, Porsche, Audi.

And Ferraris are red because Alfa Romeos used to be red.

The commonly seen Ferrari red is known officially by Ferrari as "Rosso Corsa" or Racing Red (cf. British Racing Green). The Yellow on the other hand is known as Giallo Modena named after the birth place of Enzo Ferrari - Yellow being the official colour of that region.
I would have thought that if Ferraris were supposed to race in yellow, then Ferrari would have a colour called Racing Yellow and the red would be called something else.

If any ferrari owners have become trminally depressed by this argument and have decided to buy a Ford, would they give me their old Ferrari, I wouldn't mind what colour it was... ;)

Oh pur-lease! Why 'should' any car be any color? Epecially when you're being asked to pay €100,000 for it.

I think he meant in the racing sense...
Anyway, the REAL colour for Lamborghini, at least around these here parts is a sort of creamy fawn colour. :rolleyes:

Oi, You lot, is this what this forum is all about, come on, the colour of cars.
Get a life.
Rob

I'd argue that this is, indeed, a highly relevant topic relating to Italian culture. I didn't know that Ferraris had to be red and now I do. So I learned something. So it's educational as well. Or did you mean get an educated cultured life?

[quote=tuscanhills;1547]Can anyone help? WAS my leg being pulled?[/quote]
Not only your leg, methinks... :winki:

I seem to recall staying with someone near assisi who had a brand new YELLOW ferrari and he told me that this was Enzo's original colour, I can't recall why he couldn't produce (at that time) a red car ?

Moved to : Italiauncovered.co.uk

Aren't Lamborghinis always yellow, and for what reason if they are???

I've never heard of Giallo Modena, but I know of a Porsche owner who had his car done in Ferrari 'Giallo Fly' (sic) because it was more "racy" than the German's 'Speed Yellow' ('Speed Gelb'). (Mine was boring silver).

In the olden days of Grand Prix racing (but these colours only apply to the racing circuits) anything Italian (Alfa, and later Ferrari) was red: but a much darker red than the current Ferrari bright red. Anything British (Bentley, Jaguar) was British Racing Green. Germans (Mercedes and Auto Union) were originally white, (but soon became silver when they figured out that the paint weighed something, and so they just polished the aluminium). Bugattis were pale blue. But these colours only applied in international races. Yellow belongs on JCBs, but they don't figure greatly in high level auto racing!!

Now, can anybody tell me why Italian sporting teams are called Azzuri, and wear blue strip?

Correct if I'm wrong but the prancing horse is yellow taken from WW1 German air ace so I guess you could not have yellow on yellow

That said all teams did have to have their own colours Britain green France blue etc etc

Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta lived in Castello di Miramare near Trieste and was a pilot in the Italian Royal Air Force based in Gorizzia. The insignia of the squadron he led was a prancing horse on a yellow shield. I have always understood this to be the design Enzo Ferrari copied. Certainly if you live in Friuli Venezia Guilia this is a fact!

Ha !:yes:

I thought I'd heard about the prancing horse on the[SIZE=6] [/SIZE][COLOR=black][SIZE=6]yellow[/SIZE] [/COLOR]Ferrari......I can't quite recall though..did Enzo create the [FONT=Arial Black][COLOR=palegreen]original[/COLOR] [/FONT]ferrari BEFORE or after the more famous red one?

This may be the reason why the ferrari ORIGINAL colour was yellow ?......Wikipedia ????

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4]Enzo Ferrari chose to have the horse in black (as it had been painted as a sign of grief on Baracca's squadron planes after the pilot was killed in action) and he added a [/SIZE][/FONT][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary"][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4]canary[/SIZE][/FONT][/URL][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4] yellow background as this is the color of the city of Modena, his birthplace[/SIZE][/FONT]

It is worth looking at both the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari"]Wikipedia entry[/URL] and also the [URL="http://www.ferrariworld.com"]Ferrari website[/URL] for a fairly full story.

One should be aware that Ferrari didn't actually make any road cars until after he had entered the racing world - and as an Italian race team, his cars were red - Rosso Corsa.
[quote]Rosso Corsa is the red international motor racing colour of Italy. Since the 1920s, Italian race cars of Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Lancia and later Ferrari and Abarth were (and often still are) painted in rosso corsa ("race red"). This was the customary national racing colour of Italy, as recommended between the World Wars by the organisations that later would become the FIA. In that scheme of international auto racing colors, French cars like Bugatti were blue, German like BMW and Porsche white (since 1934 also Silver Arrows), British racing green etc.
[B]The colour was not determined by the country the car was made in, nor by the nationality of the driver(s), but by the nationality of the team that entered the vehicle. [/B]
These national colours were mostly replaced by sponsor liveries since 1968, but unlike most other teams, Ferrari always kept the traditional red. The shade of the colour varies, though. Since 1996, the Ferrari F1 cars are painted in a brighter, very orange "Marlboro Red," to adjust for colour balance on television screens. The original Rosso Corsa may appear almost dark brown in older television sets. The darker, more crimson or claret-like shade of red made a return on the F1 cars at the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix, possibly in line with the increasing market presence of higher quality, high definition television. In recent years, these traditional colours have resurfaced in some cases, eg. the green Jaguar Racing F1 cars.[/quote] I hope this helps...

Hmmmmm having posted this thread some time back, I can see the sanity in having one national colour.....Yep, Messers Lambo and Ferrari (the best of freinds) would not hesitate in sharing the same colour.....pah! Don't be mad!

The only reason that Lambo was set up was because Mr Lambo thought Mr Ferrari was a plonker and wanted to make him look daft! Why would they ever want to share *anything*?!?!?

Stop cutting & pasting, everyone, eh?

[quote=tuscanhills;96344]
Stop cutting & pasting, everyone, eh?[/quote]

Uh? That is really offensive.

Nardini quoted his sources perfectly: my offerings have been entirely mine. Sprostoni, PAS and steve and jackie have contributed personal relevant observations. Nuff said.

[quote=tuscanhills;96344].....pah! Don't be mad![/quote]Which "other" bit did they pull, David?