History: Where does McLaren’s chrome livery come from?

Formula One sponsorship liveries have been used since the 1968 F1 season, replacing national colours. The Woking-based McLaren Team became the leader in Formula 1 teams' trend for special liveries when it debuted their chrome colour scheme back in 2006.

McLaren raced with a special chrome-inspired livery in last weekend’s British Grand Prix with which the team relived the livery they from 2006 to 2014. In fact, the Woking-based mixed their current papaya colour scheme with chrome panels on their bodywork and engine cover.

In truth, the chrome livery marked the last successful era of the team that was founded back in 1963. The first year of the ‘chrome era’ was the 2006 season which did not bring huge successful to the British team as their drivers – Kimi Räikkönen, Pedro de la Rosa and Juan Pablo Montoya – were unable to clinch a victory.

The Columbian, who left the team after Round 10, collected a total of two podium finishes with the Spaniard, who took over his seat, managed to grab a third-place finish in Hungary. The Finn went on to secure two second-place finishes in Melbourne and Monza next to his third-place finishes in Manama, Silverstone, Montreal and Hockenheim.

The team then carried over their chrome livery into next year with Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton joining McLaren and fighting for the title only to miss out on the title by a single point. McLaren’s chrome era was defined by Lewis Hamilton’s momentous Driver’s World Championship in 2008.

In the following years, the chrome-liveried McLaren continued to secure victories courtesy of Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen, Jenson Button until the last year of the chrome era in 2014 only yielded the British team with a third and second-place finishes in Melbourne.

But where does the chrome livery come from? The man behind the idea is Lawrence Manning, who joined the successful team as an Airbrush Artist in 1997. Next to his main work at the F1 team, he had multiple hobbies and part-time work that were all connected with creative activities which included designing helmets.

He got hold of some chrome paint from America with which he designed a helmet. That is where the idea of changing McLaren’s silver livery to a striking chrome color scheme came from.

Speaking to McLaren’s official website, Lawrence added: “I was sent to America to work with the company that made it and to buy a load of it.

“Whilst we were there in America, they had people from perfume companies trying to buy it for their factories as decorative paint finishes, which I guess is where the perfume bottle story comes from. I told them we were looking to do it on a car, and their response was, ‘that’s big…’

“However, they felt they could do it because we’d be painting the panels separately, not the full car in one go. We would never paint an entire car in one go, it is done in parts. This made a chrome car more realistic, although it did come with the challenge of making sure that the paint on all of the panels matched up.”

However, it was not so simple and easy to apply the chrome paint on the cars as the surface of a Formula One car is fragile which meant that even a stone could force the paint to come off the panels.

“We spent a lot of money, and I'd said, ‘yeah, we can do it,’ but I had only ever tried it on something the size of a football,” he continues. “I knew it could be done, and we were all excited to do it, but the worry we had at the time was whether the paint would stick.

“It was being painted onto a really fragile surface, so what if a stone chips our car? Would it come off? It did actually fail at one point: a whole sheet of it came off the car in testing. It was like a snakeskin.”

Following the difficulties experienced during the test, McLaren changed the way they applied the paint on to the cars. The group around Manning started to use plasma with multiple paint surfaces laid on the car: primer, black paint, lacquer, chrome and more lacquer.

Interestingly, while the weight of the car is considered as one of the main performance differentiator in the modern era of Formula One, mainly since the introduction of the new safety components, heavier tyres and hybrid power units, it was less important back in 2006.

“Even when the car was unveiled to the press and public, people couldn't believe that you could have a chrome car on the track. They were worried that it would be reflective, and drivers were moaning about the potential for sun glare, but because it wasn’t full chrome, more like a metal ball bearing effect, that wasn’t an issue, and it was accepted,” Lawrence is quoted as saying on the McLaren’s official website.