ORANGE AND GREEN SHOULD NOT WORK.
by STINT GEAR
The 787B ran two colours: #FF7101 orange and #007E37 green, both at full saturation, separated by a broken white line. They sit 120 degrees apart on the colour wheel and only 1.89:1 apart in brightness. On paper that is a combination that should be difficult to look at.
On the car that won Le Mans in 1991 it is the entire scheme, and 35 years later it is still the livery people can draw from memory. Here is why it holds.
What colours are on the 787B?
| Orange | Green | |
|---|---|---|
| Hex | #FF7101 | #007E37 |
| RGB | 255, 113, 1 | 0, 126, 55 |
| HSL | 26 deg, 100%, 50% | 146 deg, 100%, 25% |
| Relative luminance | 0.331 | 0.152 |
Hue separation 120 degrees. Contrast ratio 1.89:1.
Two caveats, because almost nothing online states them. The car's orange was a fluorescent paint, and fluorescent colour cannot be represented accurately in hex at all, since it emits light as well as reflecting it. And the values in circulation disagree with each other, some reading the green as close to British Racing Green, others as closer to teal.
The values above are what the garments print in.
Can you match these colours in paint?
Not exactly, and this is where most people hunting the values get stuck. Fluorescent pigment fluoresces under ultraviolet as well as reflecting visible light, so no hex value and no standard paint mix reproduces it in daylight. Model paint suppliers sell it as a dedicated fluorescent orange for that reason, usually specifying a white base coat underneath, because the pigment is semi-transparent and goes dull over anything darker.
The nearest non-fluorescent reference point is safety orange at #FF7900, which sits within a few values of #FF7101. That similarity is the giveaway. This was chosen to be seen, not to be tasteful.
Being seen is not a matter of taste in this sport. There are rules about it, with numbers attached: how racing liveries are designed.
Why orange and green work together
The usual story is that these two clash because they sit opposite each other. They don't. The orange sits at 26 degrees on the wheel and the green at 146. That is 120 degrees apart, which is not complementary at all. It is exactly triadic, one of the relationships colour theory treats as stable.
The tension is somewhere else. Both colours run at full saturation, neither toned down to make room for the other, and their relative luminance is close: 0.331 against 0.152, a contrast ratio of 1.89:1. That is below the 3:1 large text needs to stay legible.
Two fully saturated colours at near equal brightness is the recipe for edge vibration, where the boundary between them appears to shimmer. This scheme should be uncomfortable.
How the colours are divided
Not one line, and not down the middle. The boundary runs as a series of angular segments, changing direction across the nose, the flank, the roof. Neither colour gets a clean half. Each one interlocks into the other.
A single diagonal would have read as a stripe applied to a shape. This reads as the shape itself, which is why the car still looks like one object from any angle rather than a body with a graphic on it.
What stops it vibrating
There is a keyline. It just isn't a solid one.
Where the orange meets the green, a broken white line runs the length of the boundary. Dashes, not a stripe. Close up it reads as a detail. At distance the eye closes the gaps and reads a continuous edge, and that is enough separation to stop the boundary shimmering.
A solid white stripe would have done the same job and cost more. It would have made the car three colours instead of two and broken the interlock. The dashed version buys the separation without the division.
Two fully saturated colours at near equal brightness, held apart by a line that is barely there.
Why the 787B's colours have aged well
Nothing in this scheme depends on reproduction quality. Flat colour, hard edges, no gradient, no blend, no drop shadow. It survives being a decal, a photograph, a screen print, a thread count on a knitted panel. Shrink it far enough and the dashes disappear, but the interlocking blocks still read.
Liveries built on airbrushed transitions need resolution to survive. Shrink them and the transition becomes mud. That is most of the reason schemes from a decade later have aged badly while this one has not. They were designed for the side of a car and nothing else, and everything since has been smaller than the side of a car.
The 787B at Le Mans, 1991
1991 was the final year rotary engines were allowed at Le Mans. Car 55. The four-rotor R26B. Johnny Herbert, Volker Weidler, Bertrand Gachot. 362 laps.
First Japanese car to win the race. Only rotary-powered car to win the race. Still both. Mazda's own record of the car and the race organisers' account both cover the run in more detail.
The car itself ran under a rulebook that shaped how it could be painted: why Group C cars look like that.
One last thing
The company whose colours those were sold clothing.
Which is a strange thing to find at the end of a piece about a race car, and it is the reason this is the first one we wrote.