What Happened To (Many) NASCAR Paint Schemes? 

What are your thoughts on many modern NASCAR paint schemes?

The schemes that we see nowadays are clearly less iconic. In 10 years time, no one is going to say “Yeah, the Raptor driver!” when talking about William Bryon.

I always loved the bobby labonte green, black and red interstate batteries Pontiac grand prix. Such a cool paint scheme.

I think one of the largest problems is 26 different sponsors throughout the year. When it was Martin in the Valvoline, Gordon in Dupont, Earnhardt in the Goodwrench ect. they ran that primary scheme most of the races and maybe a secondary like 4-5 races. It made the special schemes more special and created brand identity. I know that sponsors do not want to do this anymore, but I feel it is almost pointless at this point to sponsor 1 or 2 races like some sponsors are doing. Back in the day the car was called by the name on the hood as much as the driver inside.

Honestly, I think it comes down to 3 things: The sponsors being picky, the teams needing to find an edge, and the simple fact that there are far more sponsors per season on a single car than there used to be. Back in the day, when there would be almost, or completely exclusively one sponsor on a car, it was easy to pick out and recognize, and if even if you might not like a scheme at first, if you see it every Sunday for 30 weeks, it's going to grow on you. That's why, even to fans who weren't around for the 90's can easily recognize the Earnhardt and Gordon cars for example. But, nowadays, there's just so many sponsors for most teams that even if a scheme is fantastic, most will forget about it by the end of the season. Not to mention the fact that tech inspection back then didn't involve laser measurements. Teams now have to fight harder for less, and unfortunately, there's no real way to ban OSS manipulation. I do disagree though with the "Paint VS Wrap" thing, because really, I can't tell a single difference between identical schemes. Also doesn't help that the example given was pretty poor considering it's full day lighting VS night with a bunch of giant lights pointed at it. Maybe in real life it makes more of a difference, or maybe I just don't have the taste so to speak, but I have to go off what I can see, and what I see is negligible.

I miss the 80's to the early 10's when the neon colored cars that would burn your eyes in the sun! The wraps do make things cleaner and faster, but man I miss the paint.

Livery is different than what NASCAR does. F1 does awesome paint schemes to attract sponsors. NASCAR does the paint schemes after they get sponsors.

My biggest gripe with liveries is the use of pictures of a real thing rather than a simplified art version of it Look at Reddick's 2022 Cheddar's scheme vs Busch's 2023 Cheddar's scheme, Reddick's was just better with the stylised croissant fade, comparted to just a picture of a croissant. Another good example was Bubba's 2022 McDonalds scheme with the stylised Bic Mac meal, they could have very easily just put a picture of the food, but didn't and it looks better

Modern Paint Schemes are so dull now because of the minimalism that sponsors are going towards. None are really eye popping or stand out anymore like Dale Jr’s Bud car or Jeff Gordon’s flame look. Which is a shame because those are some of the most iconic paint schemes in the sport.

It’s not the designers fault at all. The sponsors and sometimes even the teams have strict guidelines on how they want their respective company to be promoted

Other factor is too many brands are forcing people to use a matt wrap over a slick/shiny one and often ending up a minuet issue of drag sometimes for the worse NASCAR depending on track where new cars at the moment not as much can be done to change car up at all to get a different setup even from Shortrack/road track car to the intermediate 1 mile to 1.6 mile tracks even when NASCAR Needs at least 2 types of car setups.

Eric had something similar yesterday….. it was discussed about how some how designs might be an effort cheat the Hawkeye system. An idea of how to monitor this was ‘ a white vinyl patch ‘., over points where a concern was detected. We need to be careful or we could have Pocono 2022 at every race.

Jeff Gordon's 2005 Star Wars Pepsi Scheme and Ward Burton's 2002 Flame Dodge is my favorite of all time.

It's much harder to pick any one car out of the pack when teams have six to a dozen primary sponsorships/liveries. I also feel like enough can't be said about day glow paint

Designer here - I've done some mock-up livery designs for various drivers in indycar and nascar. Every point here is correct, when you design a car in a boardroom or tech meeting they are not thinking about how the design flows on the car (especially when it is moving and the tv cameras are panning around). From what I have observed, half of the best designs that see the track *most* (I'm looking at you ugly af Liberty cars) of the best liveries now come from newer sponsors that seem to be more open to hiring private designers. I'm not sure why this is, but I think it's because these sponsors have better social media and marketing teams, and they pay attention to what interactions people are having with their brand. When a designer posts their livery and tags the brand, they actually see it. They see how many likes and comments they get too. They know what fans like. That's gotta be how they are finding designers like seanbull, lefty and many others I can't name right off the top of my head. While the majority of them are newer sponsors, some older sponsors in the sport do have great social/marketing teams but it's not a lot of them. Anheuser-Busch is the only one I can think of immediately that have always had good looking racecars and they have been in the cup series since like 2000 when they started with Jr. Maybe they where there before that too? The second half of the good liveries come from teams that hire their designer(s) and just trust them to do their thing. Look at Trackhouse and RFK, 95% of the season their cars are some of the best looking on the track. It's clear that when you look at those cars, the designer knows what they are doing and the team/sponsor is letting them show it.

I actually like a lot of todays paint schemes better. 23II and trackhouse have cool schemes. The only ones I don’t like are the half car one scheme/sponsor and then half the other scheme/sponsor (Ricky Stenhouse)

Unfortunately I don't think designers have too much say when it comes to the designs on the cars. But modern paint schemes are dull because that's what companies want right now. If you notice lately, a lot of companies have rebranded to a more minimalist, basic style than something eye catching and unique. I think there should be a race event every year where designers have full freedom to put what they want on the cars, or have fans vote on what the paint schemes should be for the following race.

The type of sponsors too that are coming into nascar too don’t help. Like these drug and tech companies, there really isn’t much you can do to make a paint scheme with a drug sponsor to make it cool looking. Byron’s HP car has to be one of the most bland paint schemes of all time. The beer and car parts/motor oil companies always has the most to work with to make it cool and stand out

I don’t really have a gripe with the paint scheme. I have a gripe with how many there are. I remember when one paint scheme would be used for every race with the exception of one to three races, being special or throwback races. It’s just too hard to keep track of everything now.

I've always felt the driver should have the final say on a paint/wrap design. That's why I've always admired Johnny Morris and Bass Pro. He and Bass Pro still let teams have that creative freedom. Plus black and orange have become the 2 base colors associated with Bass Pro cars.

Blinded by nostalgia that what i am seeing by the video.

Can't blame the designers. They're being forced to kiss up to corporate bs and help exploit advantages for the teams. Modern paint schemes diminish the aesthetic and fan relatability elements

Just look at Byron's new schemes- compare the released scheme with Blackbeard's actual design. One of my favorite things to play with is the 21 Ignition paint booth, I barely know what I'm doing and I've designed better schemes than a lot of these teams.

I think it’s time for nascar to adopt a similar formula to the likes of open wheel and sports cars. As much as I wished to see the continued potential legendary paint schemes, with the reach not being as strong in pop culture like it used to be, I think it’s time to start raising the Team’s brand again. Yes, not the drivers, but the teams. Drivers come and go, but teams tend to stay longer than the average driver. Before the days of big cigarette money and heavy sponsorship dollars, teams branded themselves or a local shop nearby. How it ends up looking like, not quite sure, but the numbers placed where they are right next the team logo on the side is a good start, like trackhouse’s test car. The HMS platinum schemes come to mind as a similar level effort I’d like to see.

The Rainbow Car (1993 to 2000) will never be dethroned as the #1 greatest NASCAR paint scheme of all time

Great use of the word “clusterfuck”. 👍🏻

Where I think the cars started looking and less elite is when all those small contingency sponsor stickers started disappearing. Not only did it make it look like there was less money/support/attention etc going into the teams and sport as a whole, it just left this huge blank space between the front wheel and number, which really looked pretty lame. I imagine that was one of the reasons for the side number move, but for most cars, that just made the blank space bigger and lamer. Like Harvick's Homestead scheme this year: looked phenomenal on the 2014 car. But the side of the 2023 car looked AWFUL with that massive blank red space between the number and where the sponsor graphic finally started. And don't even get me started on Byron's Raptor schemes. Bland, lame, honestly just a waste.

Something that I think companies are just oblivious to is that if you let a team run a traditional paint scheme week to week but differentiate it by the sponsor, people by default have to identify it by the sponsor. Penske and Wood bros have this as good as anyone. But despite everything, if random squiggles and boxes let teams think they're beating the system, I am willing to allow that on the grounds of racecar bullshit. I live for that kind of shenanigans. Tangent though, there really is no excuse for the way they have danced around using the door for sponsor space like they have. I know short track guys who did that trick in the 80's to sell more space on the side of the car and they had better schemes than so many of these.

You know who does have great schemes, Ricky Stenhouse Jr

Im a huge formula drift fan, Go look at their cars. Style comes first in the designs and while most are wrapped, some guys do run actual painted liveries and it looks amazing.

One thing I don’t like the wraps from painting the cars it’s that they can’t change because of the rolls of vinyl that are used. They don’t have the freedom or ability to make too many changes. I don’t think we would’ve seen the Kyle Petty protest car in this day and age. One cool aspect of the wraps is the ease of replicating a product like a beer can or what have you and making the card identical to it. I think the blandness has a lot to do with sponsors playing it safe. If you go back to Jeff Gordon’s 3M car that was by fare the worst scheme that he ran in his career that wasn’t a one off

23XI & Trackhouse are the Teams with The Best Schemes

I think it's throughout all of racing in general, not just NASCAR. Liveries have become dull and overhyped. Christ, it's merely just click-bait when F1 teams do their "digital car reveal ceremonies" which are basically just a livery reveal, or lack thereof with how more teams are basically just slapping decals on bare carbon fiber. Indycar too really has an identity crisis (and I'm a huge Indycar fan) when it comes to this. You see so much false hype based around livery unveils for the 500 (and number reveals for 500-only entries) which are completely meaningless. NASCAR, however, does take the cake on this, and I get it, the sponsors are the push for it, but liveries are way too dull are way too complicated anymore. I remember when I was a kid and would watch The Winston. Watching on TV, you never knew what the livery was going to be until they wheeled it out during driver intros. The "throwback" liveries are a joke anymore too. Nothing about them looks like a throwback anymore, especially when you factor that colors are changed to appease the sponsors, or they are an "interpretation" of the livery, or whatever. There's no soul in the look of the cars anymore.

I miss jeff gordon flames and terry labonte tiger cars

dad has been in motorsports for a long time and at the shop I ask why do you wrap the car instead of painting it for many reasons for weight and salons for that they did have to paint the car again and also wrap is cheaper also paint booths are expensive thats why

Most paint schemes nowadays are here to trick the OSS(this is before i watch the video)

Nascar has the final say on paint schemes. I remember the debate over the LGB Coin paint scheme and the confusion over Nascar denying a paint scheme bc of a decal too close to the number or something along those lines

That Blaney/Coors light car needs to happen

I'm going to make a bold prediction that in 5-10 years, NASCAR will mandate the numbers be brought back to the middle where traditional they have always been, but kids who started watching during the gen 7 era of now will eventually feel fuzzy nostalgia for forward numbers because that was part of the NASCAR they grew up on.

honestly I cant see the difference between wraps and paint because im color blind

Imagine using the ok raptor scheme and not the dog shit axalta scheme. Wrap application isn’t hard. Not as hard as paint and the whole argument of paint being more vibrant is just dog shit. Go see Blaneys Menards yellow and tell me a wrap can’t be vibrant. Painted cars can be metallic flake and guess what, so can wraps. It comes down to the corporate branding which isn’t new for nascar. I designed car and vehicle wraps for companies for a decade and I could come up with the most eye catching design but if the lame ass corporate suits are strict, it’s not happening. They get the blame here.

The reason paint schemes are being talked about more and more is because they got rid of all the old ones, especially BUSCHY'S M&M's CAR!!!!!!

Theres alot of cars that use white on their schems that blend in that or black their not bad as theme selfs but when you have a bunch them on track they tend to blend in together

No bud..the number placement made it bad...actual not but but even worse

Also schemes only last one race most of the time now days so

I can see in the future many schemes “ inspired “ by Mark Martin Valvoline…. Odd shaped “ V “ everywhere on every car. 😂😂😂🎉🎉😂 🎉😂

The shell car should be silver, like reflective silver in a way paint cant and wrap can! If you wanna know what i mean, just look up shell silver rail car

really only a case since late gen 6

In my opinion, the designs changing every year and drivers having 11 different designs in a season hurts. Im a big Larson fan, I don't even care for his scheme BUT it's one of the most consistent schemes out there. Guys like Ross Chastain, I have no fkn idea what his car will look like. Chase Elliotts design changes far too often. Yeah it's still blue, but there is no reason why Elliott shouldn't have an iconic type design that is relatively unchanged. Look at Dale Earnhardt. His GM Goodwrench car is thought of as the same, but it went through changes. Whether some stripes on the bottom for the car or changing to PLUS on the hood. Jr had 2 different colors but the same scheme with mtn dew and national guard. It worked. Imo Logano and Penske do well with Pennzoil. His car is almost always that Pennzoil yellow. I know this comes down to sponsorship but always changing the design hurts.

The only paint schemes design that are the best awesome schemes will be Track House Racing(1, 91, and 99) and second best schemes will be Hendrick Motorsports(5, 9, 24, and 48)

Today you wrap it Yesterday you painted it. Anything to make the sponsors happy after all they are the ones paying for it.

I like the new Raptor scheme...

Honestly half of the bad schemes are the fault of Hendrick, Legacy, and fucking JTG

when was the chase elliot dump and run at 1:10? that was hilarious.

Jackson storm because the designers took advantage of the extra space because the number is not on the door and came up with a good design

I love Byron's schemes

Exactly!!! Wrap schemes suck bad now days

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder thats all im saying.

Nowadays they try too hard. Dale sr simple yellow/ blue wrangler simple black/ silver goodwrench same as rusty walace. Bill elliott simple red white blue coors for example

I’ll say it! 4:40

Enjoy this video while it’s up cuz NASCAR’s about to take it down

Mights well just get rid of car owners. Car owners has no say so in racing nomore. When a sponsor pays $31 million dollars then who do you think runs the show. If you got a tie with Chevy,Ford,Toyota then the car owner still has no say so in it, The car owners are gettting shafted hardcore and they like it without lube. They can go on strike but there scared to. If all the car owners goes on strike then stuff will change. SRX is thriving while nascar has been around for decades and still cant get it right. It is starting to get pathetic.

I thought of something the other day. It's like they're going back to the plain paint scheme designs of the 80s and 90s.

Ok, wrapping a car is just lazy.

The cars are slow. The cars lack color. It just doesn't have that "it" factor at times now.

I love those Byron schemes

nascar is a joke nowadays

yeah people act like whatever happened to the good old days when it comes to NASCAR paint jobs .😊

NASCAR is a joke stop being generous bro.

Anybody hiring paint scheme designers? I’d love to eventually end up designing paint schemes in nascar, I know how to make them I just don’t know where to look for the jobs at.

I know one thing.,. This comment has the ability to flip a very important switch. ALGORITHM BOOSTER ENGAGED!!!! 👃

Even with the number being moved to the front, I know that there is potential of amazing paint schemes

I just want Kroger to have their hood logo centered for once

One thing that has also gone away in the next gen era are colored rims. I can think of a couple paint schemes that would look miles better if they had colored rims to match a certain part of the car. Logano’s Pennzoil paint scheme comes to mind.

I usually call Kyle Busch the weed car guy... People usually get confused when he pulls up in the Kwik Trip car, or the McLaren car, or the, well, you get the idea.

As an upcoming paint scheme designer, this video knocks everything out of the park, modern schemes feel bland. However, some can stand out and look fantastic. With that said, teams should use paint instead of wrap, that would be great. I associate some schemes with drivers that I grew up with, like Dale Jr w/ Mountain Dew, Jimmie w/ Lowe's, etc. I fear that fans younger than me won't get to experience the same with some drivers on the current grid which is unfortunate.

Another thing to mention is some teams have a design they use on all of their paint schemes track house is good example of this so some companies colors will look very good on it and some will look weird

Not only does the sponsor needs to get their heads out of their butts and recognize Talent when they see it, but they also need to make sure that it stands out for every single race in every single season that are on board. We need one sponsor to one car, and keep it that way (if you want to show off an associate sponsor, then do something that Menards or Napa does and keep the base primary scheme virtually the same).

I miss when cars had one single paint scheme for the entire season. I understand why that isn’t a thing anymore, but I still miss it.

It most likely has to do with the numbers being forward on these cars

Jeff Gordon always kept his paint schemes on point!! That was a big part of his brand… you look at the current Hendrick motorsports paint schemes and it’s a tragedy.

Its the stupid number placement man. Plus the schemes just dont look as complete without all the millions of contingency sponsors that used to be where the numbers are today. Not all suck but most schemes do. Seems like the only ones that consistently look good are Trackhouse, RFK, and Harvicks (sadly hes retired now). Also since most teams have millions of random sponsors on a car each race it gets confusing. Nothing will beat the metallic glossy paint of gen 4 and before with making somewhat duller schemes then look amazing too. Remember how nice schemes like Gordons, The Miller Lite Blue, Silver Coors Light etc looked? I really miss the more consistent sponsors each week. I do like Chase's new Napa though

One thing nobody thinks about is design of the car itself. For example larsons hendrickcars scheme IMO for some reason looked better on the Gen 6 than the Gen 7 car. Same with Chase Elliott Napa but looks better on the Gen 7 rather than Gen 6

That's the way everything's going nowadays is a Wrapping your car you can create a custom paint job for your streetcar with the wrap and guess what you can take it off whenever you go and sell it you can't do that if you paint the car it's forever if you want a custom card that looks exactly like your own then you use a wrap and I think it's a lot cheaper than painting a car I know it's the same for nascar And also you can have extra wraps on hand in case you have to go to a backup car because generally a lot of backup cars are not painted so I think the days of actually custom painting a car for streetcars is taking a turn to the wraps

While paint schemes have gotten blander, NASCAR teams nor the sponsors market their drivers well anymore. They aren't in commercials or even having a cardboard cutout of them at a local store. Plus many of the sponsors we see we just dont know so it makes it hard to like a scheme if you don't even know the company. As for great schemes I thought Aric Almirola's Mobil scheme in Vegas March 2022 was good

I really don't think the sponsor names need to be bigger. With all the plugs during the broadcast, the sponsors don't need help. 4 Goodyear tires and Sunoco race fuel. Well, this car was as fast as Xfinity internet. Come on now.

People complaining about wraps must not know much about them Wraps are cheaper and better for motorsports Paint is not cheap and best for racing. This guy just complains to complain

I don't like how the number is not placed on the door on the next gen cars I prefer the Xfinity series cars because of their numbers are placed on the door and also because the Xfinity series cars are better

Obviously a controversial opinion, but I think the Raptor scheme looks great

I’m telling you it’s the stupid number slid up ruins most of the schemes imo the worst move Nascar has ever made.

These new paint schemes are just fucking ugly. Put the numbers back where they belong.

At least the 24 looks better than the 9. That 9 car is mad ugly this year, both the NAPA and Llumar cars.