Sierra RS500 — the fuel-house scheme
Red roof, white flank, black tail. A three-part division that turns the RS500's whale-tail into the end of a sentence.
| Team / entry | Group A Sierra entries |
|---|---|
| Car | Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth |
| Years | 1987–1990 |
| Decade | 1980s |
| Hero-car issue | Issue 06 — Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth |
Reading the geometry
The RS500's problem, graphically, is the rear wing: an enormous horizontal plane sitting above an otherwise ordinary hatchback. The fuel-house scheme deals with it by making the rear of the car a separate block of colour entirely, so the wing reads as part of a deliberate tail section rather than as an addition.
Forward of that, the division is horizontal — red across the roof and upper body, black hairline at the shoulder, then white for the doors and sills with a fine red line beneath. Three zones, each doing one job.
A raked red bar sits ahead of the black tail block, which softens what would otherwise be an abrupt vertical join.
Reproduced here as colour and stripe geometry only. The fuel company's marks are not drawn.
Presented as a historical colour study for editorial reference. All team names, marques and marks referred to remain the property of their owners.
Sierra RS500 — the same diagonal, two years earlier
The scheme the M3 inherited. Same brewery, same driver, a different car and a different set of rules.
Sierra RS500 — the pale blue wedge
A pale sky blue, which no one else was using, cut by a white wedge that starts at the floor and finishes at the roofline.