E30 M3 — black and gold, southern hemisphere
The most famous two colours in motorsport, run by a customer team on the other side of the world, six years after the Formula One cars made them famous.
| Team / entry | JPS Team BMW, Australian Group A — John Player Special |
|---|---|
| Car | BMW E30 M3 |
| Years | 1987 |
| Decade | 1980s |
| Hero-car issue | Issue 02 — BMW E30 M3 |
Reading the geometry
Frank Gardner's JPS Team BMW carried the black-and-gold from 1981 to 1987, first on 635 CSis and 325is and finally on the M3. Jim Richards and Tony Longhurst took one to fourth overall and a class win at the 1987 Bathurst 1000, then a round of the world championship.
Everything here is line weight. The body is a single black field, and the whole scheme is carried by gold striping: a fine hairline paired with a heavier band, repeated top and bottom, plus a matched vertical pair over the nose. Nothing is filled; nothing is shaded. The gold works because there is so little of it.
It is a rare case of a tobacco-funded privateer building its own cars rather than badging a factory effort, and it ended on the M3 — the last and most modern chassis the team ever ran. Colour and stripe geometry only; no wordmark is drawn.
Presented as a historical colour study for editorial reference. All team names, marques and marks referred to remain the property of their owners.
E30 M3 — the pilsner-house years
A white shell divided by a low red band and a black skirt — the plainest arrangement on this page and, for a decade, the most feared.
E30 M3 — the orange privateers
One saturated orange field, cut by a hard black diagonal. The loudest colour in German motorsport, used with almost no ornament at all.
E30 M3 — the imported red
A Formula One identity lifted wholesale onto a saloon: red above the beltline, white below it, and almost nothing else.
E30 M3 — the brewery diagonal
One broad white diagonal across a deep blue shell. The livery that opened the two-litre era in Britain.