FRENCH RACING BLUE

Upto the end of the 1960's when sponsorship came into motor racing cars were usually, but not always , painted in the racing colours of the team's country of origin . British cars were green , Italian cars red , German cars white or silver ( originally the nominated colour for Gemany was white but prewar the magnificent Auto Union and Mercedes Grand Prix cars were bare metal and then painted silver and this became the alternative German national colour) .Belgian cars were yellow , American cars were white with blue bonnet stripes and ,of course , French cars were blue .There was no specific pannetone for the colour so British Racing Green had various interpretations from dark green as used by Jaguar on their Le Mans cars  to a distinct light green as used by the Vanwall team .French Bugatti cars were invairably a very distinct Bugatti blue but other French teams had subtle variations on the blue theme as these three images of respectively a Alpine-Renault , Matra-Simca and Bugatti-- all taken at the Le Mans Classic-- show.
The French always do a nice line in "different" racing cars . They do "small" well and often resort to unusual engine configurations ( eg straight 8 supercharged in the Bugatti ) . The Alpine-Renault is a great favourite of mine . Highly tuned small capacity engine hanging out the rear in a very light body .

As this post has ,for some reason,proved to be very popular here are some more French Racing Blue images.