There’s been a lot made about the return to F1 of Mercedes as a constructor in its own right this season for the first time since it pulled out of motorsport at the end of the 1955 season following the Le Mans tragedy earlier that year.
Of course everyone, including the team itself, is dubbing the former Tyrrell, former BAR, former Honda, former Brawn team “the Silver Arrows,” and the parrallel between the team line-up of that 1955 season and the 2010 campaign is a rather lovely hark back to the days of old: the legendary multiple world champion (Fangio / Schumacher) being linked up with a young buck with bucket loads of talent and potential (Moss / Rosberg Jr).
With the chat coming out of Norfolk suggesting to me that Lotus’ return to F1 will be marked with a classic livery of British Racing Green and a single yellow stripe down the centre with those thin accent lines in white running alongside the yellow, it is thus heartening to see that on the ultra sleek and very 21st Century Mercedes GP W01, the team has payed homage to its history and is continuing a design trait it carried on its cars 55 years ago.
A silver car, with its drivers’ numbers in a deep red, outlined in black, on a simple white circle.
Stirling Moss - Mercedes W196
c/o www.sutton-images.com
Mercedes GP W01 c/o www.sutton-images.com
Is it just me, or is that class in its simplest, purest form?
As a fellow stickler for detail, I have to agree that Merc’s inclusion of similar drivers’ number, as a throw back to a bygone era, gets a big thumbs up from me.
it is a very nice touch indeed … and well spotted!
I don’t like how the livery looks spraypainted. The combination of colours is nice but it looks cheap.
[...] Merc’s Classy Attention to Historical Detail (Will Buxton) [...]
I like the bare carbon fiber details on the nose and engine cover also. Is that a throwback to the ‘scraping the paint off the bodywork’ story of the Silver Arrows?