Colour me bad
What is our fascination with a good paint scheme or sponsor’s race replica? Scottie gets his brushes out
Win on a Sunday and sell them on a Monday isn’t just a cheesy cliché that applies to selling motorcycles, it’s also true of those sponsor or race-inspired paint jobs that have adorned sportsbikes over the decades. The trend started in the 1970s when manufacturers began to knock up replicas of bikes raced by names like Mike Hailwood and Phil Read. The ill-fated Honda Phil Read project wasn’t much more than a tarted up CB750F1/F2 SOHC. Meanwhile, Ducati made good use of the huge fairing on the MHR 900 and painted it to replicate Mike’s TT winning bike. Often, sponsor logos would be included. Some schemes are purely corporate. Think of the Yamaha speed-block stripes which have graced everything from works TZ750S to an FS1-E moped. Honda kept it corporate with their red, white and blue branding until the factory GP team was sponsored by Rothmans, with their branding all over Wayne Gardner's NSR500, spawning a host of replicas, including the classic NS400R. It wasn’t until the 1990s that his fellow countryman Mick Doohan took over the Gp/rothmans baton, taking a number of titles with his delicious-looking Repsol replica. The Repsol colours are the first stop for most CBR or VFR based race-storation. Kawasaki have always majored on green, starting out in the late 1960s when they wanted a colour to help them really stand out. Since then factoryblessed teams, including the Muzzy team of the 1990s, would race ‘green meanies’, and they would take the 1993 WSB title with Scott Russell. Suzuki have no shortage of race paint schemes in their back catalogue. For any GT750 or GS1000 special those simple colours of the Heron palette are hard to beat. During the 1980s Suzuki took cash from wherever they could find it. Random brands Walter Wolf or Skoal Bandit – the chewing tobacco firm – suddenly become part of motorcycle racing in Europe. Was there ever a sweeter looking race bike than a Skoal Bandit clad carbon fibre framed 500cc two-stroke? A limited run of officially Skoal Bandit painted GSX-R1100/750 slabbies were rare then, even rarer now. Suzuki also threw the three shades of green and white at their RG250MK3 and RG125, and each Skoal rep came with a natty certificate, too. Suzuki would run some of the coolest colours on the GP (and road) grid. They brought Pepsi to the 500cc party in 1988/89, with the likes of Ron Haslam, Rob Mcelnea and Kevin Schwantz being their (fizzy) pop idol riders. Michael Jackson was even drafted in, and Bubbles the chimp got to spend time with brand-new Pepsi painted RG500 Gamma, which was delivered to Neverland Ranch. Lucky Strike is for many the go-to race replica paint for that RGV250 or GSX-R Slingshot project, while back on the UK domestic racing scene perhaps
one of the memorable sponsors was Durex. Heading towards and into the millennium, Suzuki got into bed with Telefonica Movistar and produced a GSX-R600 K2 replica. It was eye-catching all right, while you smokers out there could roll your own when Rizla got on board with both the British Superbike squad and the official Suzuki Motogp team. We’ve mentioned the Yamaha corporate cool of the speed-block scheme, but from 1990 the 500cc GP team took the Marlboro dosh and the Day-glo orange/ white paint looks mega when executed properly, but it can fade over time. Yamaha UK did commission some RD500LCS, allegedly… If we think USA, then think of Vance & Hines and their Yamaha tie-up Stateside. Their rhubarb and custard-coloured race bikes did the business at Daytona 1993, with Eddie winning the Daytona 200 – they were also ridden by Colin Edwards. The super-cool Texan would end up with a couple of replicas of his own: the 2002 Honda VTR-SP2 courtesy of a Castrol Honda sticker kit, and an Aprilia RSV Mille replica from his time in GPS. Of course, the biggest star of them all – Valentino Rossi – has inspired his own CBR600F-SPORT (2001) and 2005’s Yamaha YZF-R46, bedecked like Vale’s lid rather than his race tackle. Sometimes the most effective race paint is the plainest. Loctite stuck to their red/white branding on many a Yamaha race bike, from the 1985 FZ750 to the Ow-01of 1990. changing it to Loctite’s ‘Fast Orange’ hand cleaner for Whitham’s 1993 title winning YZF. By 1996, Yamaha had moved to chocolate bars, our own Niall Mackenzie winning three titles in 1996-1998 on the Cadbury’s Boost YZFS and spawning a host of Kit-kats… sorry, copy-cat colour schemes.