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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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On this page, some of the artwork will show how the same vehicle can be transformed with the application of a different colour scheme. Rather than be seen as an indulgence, a designed paint job can make or break a race car, as a strong graphic image can dictate where the eye leads to. This can be an advantage or a hindrance, depending on how aware of the possibilities you are. |
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On the last page, the Kopex Chevy Beretta methanol funny car of Terry Revill and Mark Newby was shown, rendered as the car would later appear. As I’ve proved many times, funny car bodies can be manipulated using paint to represent almost any body style. This then, is the Kopex machine made to look like a Volvo using grille and headlamp changes. |
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Mark Newby later split from Terry Revill and some of the sponsorship proposals for his cars will be coming up later, during his time with Andy Kirk. In the meantime, here was a rendition using the colours of an industrial company, Norgren Martonair. The graphic treatment was kept deliberately simple to highlight the company logos and colours, with a striking result. |
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Earlier on, the Top Alcohol Dragster of Steve Read was shown in BP colours, with the basic unlettered paint scheme actually appearing on the car. Shown is the same dragster with the logos of the coffee brand Blend 37. Note the coffee bean scoop and elongated heap of beans which was in their logo at the time. |
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This is the actual Readspeed dragster on which the renditions were based. The Donovan-powered dragster was very successful in international competition, just like its previous car, which Steve Read and the team had run over 1,000 times, he reckoned! I painted Steve’s Simpson crash helmet, adding a Roland Rat cartoon on the mouth area panel. |
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In the late '80s, Robin Read was doing his own thing with a well engineered Daimler-powered, nitro-burning dragster. The paint was rather uninspiring, so in ’91, I was asked to come up with a new scheme, which is what the car ended up with. The only thing that irritated me was that the lettering didn’t come out as boldly or to the same design as the rendition, but it still worked. |
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One of the most adaptable of the 1980s funny car bodies was the Dodge Daytona. It could be made into just about anything as for a start, there wasn’t much of a grille on the front. The Draper Brothers of Charlie, Tim and Dave, had started with the Reckless Rat T altered, progressing through to the nitro funny car ranks. This is how a Vauxhall Cavalier SRI would have looked, modified from a Daytona. |
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Speaking of the Drapers, this is their imported Trans Am-bodied funny car at speed against Harlan Thompson in the Bud machine, with Charlie in full race mode. This is part of a motor drive sequence taken with a manual Nikon FM on Kodachrome 200 film and is one of my favourite shots, taken at a cloudy Pod meet. I did the lettering on the EMS-TOGO car, which used an unusual Mark Spitzer chassis, with the steering link going through the top chassis rail. |
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The ever-adaptable Daytona was just a repaint away from becoming a Sierra. The Drapers had a connection with Fords at Dagenham, so it was a logical move. The car did actually appear as a Sierra as such, but the paintwork wasn’t so effective in my opinion, despite having expensive materials and airbrushing. |
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Very often, straight, cheap paints can see off the most expensive candies. ‘Chameleon’ paint, for example, can look like mud in the wrong application. |
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It’s that Daytona again! This time in the form of a Mazda RX7-bodied nitro car. I wasn’t commissioned to do this, producing it as a get-well car for Charlie Draper after his accident. To set off the dark blue, I used two shades of a pinky lilac colour and some day-glo red trim. Even if there is no sponsorship forthcoming, making an American body into something else is a good idea. |
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When the Drapers came back into racing following the funny cars, they had Jon Webster build them a Calibra Pro Modified. This was a sister car to the well established machine of Dave Mingay and was the first to feature a supercharged Keith Black engine. The car took years to come together and never turned a tyre in their hands, having now been sold to Greece. |
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For those who may have forgotten, this is the Hellraiser Pro Modified belonging to Dave Mingay in its first paint job. The ICE Automotive Pontiac-engined machine eventually dipped into the sixes and still exists today in the hands of John Ellis. I didn’t design the paint scheme but did the lettering, persuading Dave to give the car an identity, which is important for a race car. This was later featured in Custom Car. |
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To complement Dave Mingay’s operation some T-shirts were commissioned. These were based on a 5-colour design and were quite a trial to do as the colour separations hadn’t come out and a further day's work and 280 mile round trip was in order to correct it in the T-shirt studio. |
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One of the early Santa Pod T-shirts was this one with Harlan Thompson’s Dodge Daytona as the main theme. At the time, Budweiser were not only backing the car, but many of the events as well. Some of the methanol funny cars were starting to make up the numbers to make up eight-car fields and Harlan was generally the quickest car around at that time. |
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John Spuffard is something of a veteran handler in the nitro funny car ranks over here, having progressed from early Chevy Vega beginnings, to today’s 5-second machine. In the 1980’s, John ran this Oldsmobile Firenza bodied car for a time and this was the artwork for the car, although I’m not sure the car was ever lettered up in this way. |
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This is what an Olds Firenza-bodied funny car looks like. Not the most attractive of body shapes, seen here in a Top Methanol application. Harry Räikkönen has kindly identified the car as belonging to fellow Acceleration Archive contributor Timo Aartomaa. I know that it’s Rico Anthes losing traction in his Mercedes in the far lane. |
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When John Spuffard ran this Trans Am, I was privileged to design the paint job for it. I was very careful with the curved shapes, being very aware that the bodyshell has some compound curves that can upset the masking, if you’re not careful. The idea was to make the graphic detail visible from every angle. I subsequently found that John doesn’t like green of any sort on his cars, so the lime green never got used. Unfortunately, some of the curves on the actual car were off too and I’m very fussy about these things! |
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Phil Brachtvogel is known to be one of the best riders ever of a Top Fuel motorcycle and brother Frank is renowned for his tuning prowess of a blown nitro engine. I was asked to design the bike with bodywork reflecting the logos of the Silkolene oil company. Unfortunately, the funds weren’t forthcoming to carry this off (and how many times has that happened!), but the bike would have been quite striking. Note that the Silkolene lettering is designed to be most legible when the rider is photographed astride the machine. |
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This is the bike that the Brachtvogels actually ran and it was a stunner. It had coachbuilt hand-hammered aluminium bodywork that all made sense once the bike was painted. The bike went on to win a best appearing award and once sold, I was commissioned by its new owner Ian King to design a paint job. That went on to win best appearing too, making for a very satisfying job and the bike still looks good today in Ian’s new livery. |
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The Turners are famous for their series of championship winning Top Methanol dragsters but in the '80s they were campaigning this Fuel Altered. As I recall, the basis of the car was an unused chassis from Norway which Rob and Steve Turner stretched the wheelbase on, after running it for a while. They painted the car, while I did the lettering and striping between the main colours and it had the usual Turners' fine finish. It went via Darrioux Walters to become the fuel altered of Jim Seward today. |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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