National racing colours date to the Gordon Bennett Cup of 1900 – and held annually at various locations across Europe and the UK until 1905 – when cars were identified by the nationality of their chassis: America raced in red, Germany white and France blue. The UK adopted shamrock green for the 1903 race in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, helping establish what became known as British Racing Green.

During the interwar period, colours evolved to represent teams’ countries of origin, and the American racing scheme became white bodywork over a blue chassis. Post-WWII, exposed chassis had long disappeared beneath aerodynamic bodies; teams moved the blue somewhere more visible, running it lengthwise over their white cars.

American racer Briggs Cunningham II embraced the scheme at Le Mans in 1950, painting both Cadillac entries off-white with a dark blue stripe, including the radically rebodied ‘Le Monstre’. A year later, Cunningham returned his own Chrysler Hemi-powered cars. All three were white with twin blue stripes running nose-to-tail — soon known as ‘Cunningham stripes’. In 1960, he entered Le Mans with three Corvettes and a Jaguar wearing the same trademark livery.