How Race cars came to have animalistic art painted on them!

 Written by Oran Scully 11.11.24

Pink Pig reimagined on canvas  by Oran Scully 

As the race car driver,  Jackie Stewart once famously said, “a race car is a breed of an animal “ and indeed a race car once fired up is quite alive. Its engine can be seen as its mechanical heart and lungs. Its frame can be seen as its skeleton, and its bodywork its skin, and its muscle. All of these components combining to protect its brain, the race car driver that sat within . So its fitting that that art inspired by the animal kingdom found its way onto flanks of race cars.

The first animalistic art on a race car came in 1971 and it would be a Porsche which would provide the canvas, in the form of a wide experimental version of its new prototype race car , the 917/20 .   

Inspired by its stocky muscular silhouette designers Richard Soderberg  and Anatole Lapine sprayed the car with a pink basecoat, giving the machine a flesh coloured artful second skin.  

After the car got its flesh tone colour, Soderberg and Lapine added the red broken lines of a butcher's chart, the red broken lines that mark out the various parts of a pig.   

To add the final artistic touch words were then added in a Germanic font spelling out each anatomical part of a pig. 

Pink Pig,  Porsche 917 /20 . Photo by Morio. 

The race car was soon christened with many names, namely the Truffle Jager of Zuffenhausen, The Sau, and the Pink Pig, and its appearance at Le Mans caused a sensation at the 1971 event. 

Sponsors began to take note, race cars were quickly painted with ever more eye-catching and bright colours.

Pink Pig Art on canvas by Oran Scully.

Along with the other racing liveries, the addition of bright colours gave cars like Porsches 935, a toy-like quality. 

 

 The Vaillant sponsored Porsche 935 , with its cute bunny mascot with a playful mint green. 

Porsche 935 .  Photo by Stahlkocher 

Then in 1983, the race tracks of  America were hosts to a giant red lobster livery.   

Red Lobster racing car livery .  Photo by Arturo Hurtado

Like a symbiote the Red Lobster livery enveloped the race car in a vice-like grip. With menacing eyes painted on its front hood, giant pincers arched over the front wheels, its legs hanging over the race cars doors, and a tail over the rear of the car,  it was a spectacular livery.   

Racing in the American Camel GT Series from 1983 to 1985, one can imagine this livery's impact on race car fans, as it emerged through the heat plumes left by the wake of the other cars.   A big red sea monster, with angry eyes and giant pincers, catching the backs of  the other GT cars.  

The livery itself was created by American artist,  Stephen Bach. who at the time was working on wall murals for the restaurant chain Red Lobster.  The race car team asked him to apply the artwork of a red lobster onto the race car itself. 

Red Lobster race car , reimagined on Canvas by Oran Scully 

On the other side of the World across the Atlantic, a mythical creature  called the Listerine Dragon was painted on a race car, creating heatwaves across UK race tracks.  With its dragon breath and toothy smile, what a way to promote  Listerine mouthwash.   

However by the late 1980s with the exception of the American Red Lobster,  and the  British Listerine Dragon, race car liveries got a little subdued, a little muted, and a touch more masculine.  The 1990s changed all this, when racing drivers, Jean Luc Maury Laribiere and Herve Poulain,  joined forces.  

Together Laribiere and Poulain commissioned artists to create a design for their team race car, the Venturi 600 SLM.  The result was a stunning Dragon scale livery created by the artist known as Arman.  This artist was a founder of the art movement, Nouveau Realism, which uses everyday objects as artistic possibilities.  

Dragon Scale livery , Venturi 600 SLM   Photo by David Merrett

In 1998 Esso allowed their Tiger Logo, to be painted onto the bodywork of a Toyota Supra GT 500 race car. Each car was given a distinctive predatory livery, by using the cars original black paintwork, and then adding graphics, in the form of a tigers head and paws.  

Now what do snakes, hornets and sharks have in common ?  The answer is  they were the inspiration that inspired the nose art of the Jordan F1 Cars of the mid to late 1990s.  Each iteration of  Eddie Jordans race cars, used the art of assemblage to give each car an animalistic look. 

Snake head, Jordan F1 car .  Photo by Arnaud 25  

In the year 2000, French racer Francois Lafon asked the artist Herve de Rosa, to design an artwork for his Chrysler Viper SR race car.   

Fittingly De Rosa created the body of a snake which wrapped around the contours of  Lafons dark blue Viper race car.   

A Flying Lizard was the next creature to appear, a vinyl wrap of the creatures head found its way onto the bodywork of Lizard Motorsports various race cars.   

Flying Lizard Porsche 911 race car .  Photo by Freewheeling Daredevil. 

 

There has been so many other examples of animalistic art on racing cars, one of the latest being a green T Rex  inspired livery of the AO Racing team

Its been over 50 years since Porsches Pink Pig started it all.  Yet it still feels so new, creating fresh dreams in the minds of young and old alike.