[antonye]

Colours:

Back at the start of motor racing, teams were composed on a national level rather than "buying" the best driver/rider to race your machine.

To identify the different nationalities, a colour system was used whereby a vehicle was painted in the associated national colour.

Some examples:
American vehicles were yellow - hence Daytona Yellow,
British vehicles were green - hence British Racing Green,
German vehicles were silver - hence the "traditional" Merc colour,
French vehicles were blue,
...and Italian ones were Red!

[Edited on 7-7-2004 by antonye]