Racing numbers in the 1950s and 1960s

[baclightning]

Ok, I know that people may find this a bit esoteric, but if anyone can help, I'd appreciate it. I came across a book from my childhood, Racing Cars of the World, published by Hippo Books, in 1962. It's in a 3" by 5" format, with entries for 64 then-current and historic single-seat racing cars, with one page of specifications and a full-page photo for each car. Looking at the photos of the cars, I was struck by the differences in the way the race numbers were applied. Some looked professionally done; others looked like they were applied by chimpanzees. Sometimes there was a bit of an overkill, as in Stirling Moss's car at a race in Italy in 1956*:



I know that in Formula One, etc., permanent racing numbers for the full season weren't introduced until the early 1970s. Before that date, each race organiser handed out individual numbers, meaning that even a famous driver such as Jim Clark could drive car #5 in one Grand Prix, then #3 in the next, and so on, as in these shots from 1967 (I love putting the driver's name on the car, too). A blank circle was often left for the number to be applied.





My questions are these:

How were the numbers applied? Painted by hand, painted with stencils, decals, stickers? If they were painted over for each race, wouldn't that get a bit heavy by the end of the season?

Who was responsible for applying the numbers? The race organisers or the teams? If the latter, did each team have someone with artistic ability assigned to apply the numbers at each event?

How were the numbers assigned? Order of entry? I know that Stirling Moss considered "7" his lucky number, and tried to race a car with the number "7", or a multiple of "7", such as "28", whenever he could. Could drivers request a specific number?

Why did it take so long for F1 to go with permanant numbers for a full season? I can see individual numbers in each race for the lower formulas, where entry was fluid, but in F1, it would seem logical to provide stable numbers for the major teams, and still have a few high numbers still available for "one-offs".

Anyone who was there, at the time, if you could fill me in, I'd appreciate it.

* Just to be clear, I grabbed the photos from the web, not from the book I mentioned.

[terence]

"Not a lot of people know this",as the saying goe's,but Stirling also has No7 as his Race License Number.

[GORDON STREETER]

I know that for the works teams in the Mille Miglia each car would have its starting time painted on the car, which would allow spectators some indication of their relative placement.
Up until the advent of the stick on variety the works teams and most the better prepared privateer cars numbers were hand painted or sprayed on using thin flexible stencils.

[zefarelly]

back in the good old days we still ghad a generation of very talented 'signwriters'

as well as stencils/spray I wonder whether some meetings had signwriters at hand to don numbers for people?

[Al Weyman]

The first computer operated vinyl cutters, a large machine called a Gerber and very expensive did'nt appear till the 80's I believe so it would have been stencils or hand painted. Maybe before that they used a hand operated pentagraph type device as used in old engraving processes where you traced around a number and the head of the machine cut it out.

[zefarelly]

I've cut my own numbers out from vinyl roundels when times is 'ard or I've not had time to get proper ones done.

[terence]

Well,Fablon is cheap Zef.

[Al Weyman]

Pot of paint and a brush even cheaper!

[dave vass]

I started my marshalling career at Castle Combe in 1964 as a startline marshal, gridding up the cars. As that meant that I had nothing to do in the mornings, it became my job to paint (a mix of black paint and oil) the numbers on the cars as they arrived for scrutineering. Of course this was at club race meetings.

[RAP]

I'm sure you could buy sets of (reusable?) adhesive numbers in the early sixties from places like Les Leston, but they wern't mandatory and there was a signwriter available (however amatuer) at most meetings for those that saved their pennies.

Numbers were generally assigned in order of receipt of entres, with blocks allocated to each race, but some clubs really did allocate on a first come bases so race 1 would be numbers 3, 46, 97 etc race 2 1, 23, 34 and so on.

In the 50's the 500 Club/BRSCC did tend to use standard numbers through the season at their Brands meetings, at least for regulars.

[Al Weyman]

Yes thinking about it they were probably die cut like you would odd shaped printed cards and leaflets. Basically you have a die made up and that is used to press out the shape bit like one of those pastry cutters yer mum had, its still used on screen printed vinyl.

[Gerry Taylor]

Unless you had money to burn in the sixties, then you had a brush, and a ball of chalk. Crushed the chalk, wet it and hey presto!
Then along came vynil!

[Al Weyman]

Vinyl the most misspelt word in the universe! (Hi Gerry)

[D-Type]

I remember a 1950's US movie (fiction) where the sports car drivers in a club race were given self adhesive numbers by the race organiser.

Self adhesive numbers were around in 1958 and Cooper used them to good effect to enable both drivers to qualify with the one 2.2 litre car.

But I understood that most people had permanent white roundels and used "tyre paint" (the black paint that the likes of Bernie Ecclestone, Roy Salvadori, Frank Williams and other S/H car dealers used to make the tyres of their sales stock look as good as new.) The paint could be cleaned off with a rag soaked in petrol and a new number put on next week.

[ensign14]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

I know that for the works teams in the Mille Miglia each car would have its starting time painted on the car, which would allow spectators some indication of their relative placement.

They had a signpainter at the Miglia, there's footage of him at work in a Motorfilms Quarterly DVD. All by hand, seemingly always the same which gave the numbers a distinctive house style. Mercedes was an exception - it had its own typography, presumably stickers. Indy had a painter as well, there's an article about him in one of the Clymer yearbooks.

Numbers were assigned in different ways. The British Grand Prix 1952, for example, was in alphabetical order of car name, so number 1 was the Alta of Graham Whitehead, and so on, via Aston-Butterworth, Connaught, Cooper, Ferrari, Gordini and HWM to Maserati at 32-5. Le Mans sometimes did so in descending order of engine capacity; in 1952 again the big 7 litre Cunninghams were 1-3 and the Monopoles and Panhards in the 750cc category were in the fifties and sixties. And Monaco sometimes put them in alphabetical order of country of entry. So 1959 saw Porsche (Allemagne) at 2, 4 and 6, the Equipe Nationale Belge Coopers (Belgique) at 10-12, Lucienbonnet (France) at 14, BRMs/Lotus/Cooper (Grande Bretagne) at 16-44 , Ferrari/Maserati (Italie) at 46-54 , Chiron's private Maserati (Monaco) at 56. Continentals seemed to avoid odd numbers for two reasons; firstly, superstition (13/17 would be missed out); secondly, practice would be done with odd numbers, so pirate programme sellers would not be able to stick the official entry list in their wares.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by ensign14

secondly, practice would be done with odd numbers, so pirate programme sellers would not be able to stick the official entry list in their wares.

And the ticket/programme touts today think they thought of it !

[alfaronny]

From the book: "La Targa Florio della Giulietta" by Gino Giugno

[Al Weyman]

And not a vinyl plotter in sight, good find :-).

[alfaronny]

1949 Targa Florio

[Gerry Taylor]

Sorry Al, I never woz verrri gud at spellification.

[Clive Brown]

Careful, Gerry; Weyman's hired goons may already be on their way way to subject you to 'ze vinyl solution'.

[John Turner]

So his number's up, then?

[bobsmyuncle]

Sorry to drag this one out of the back pages but I've searched and searched and this thread is the closest I've come to finding an answer on the roundels themselves.

There is quite a bit of knowledge in the responses so I'm hoping I might finally lay this to rest.

I 'think' I've gleaned from the comments here the correct assumption, however to be perfectly clear in the 60s, particularly the late 60s would roundels have been painted on, or would they have used some sort of sticker (I assume no vinyl)?

Any contributions would be appreciated. Funny how knowledge of the little things fades over time. Thanks in advance.

[bobsmyuncle]

This survivor still has me guessing...https://www.hagerty.com/articles-vid...-racing-relic#

[morninggents]

Back in the 1960s at club level we used white fablon rectangles (with corners 'rounded') cut from large rolls purchased at hardware stores. We cut individual numbers from a roll of black fablon having made cardboard templates of numbers from 0 to 9. Just about every race meeting was a different number but we peeled the old numbers off and stuck them lightly to the underneath of the bootlid to save for future use. Tightfisted, I know, but pennies were worth something back in the day.