Allright graphic design peeps - I'm thinking about doing some design work for ...some products... in my side business that are based on classic racing liveries - Gulf, Richard Petty STP, John Player Specials, Reknown, Marlboro etc.
Do you know if there are specific Pantone colors or other designated colors associated with any of these?
There certainly are but it's not always possible to find out - but if you do a search you can usually find color codes for specific brands' colors. For example, I found this with a quick search for "Marlboro red color code"
http://encycolorpedia.com/c60000
Found this searching for "Gulf oil blue color code"
https://www.gulfoil.com/portals/0/content/logos/GulfIdentityGraphicStandardsGuide.pdf
Yup, there are very specific colors. I have the Lancia Martini ones, thanks to the shop that painted them via a Finnish restoration shop. They're not Pantone, they're specified as things like "Opel Flame Red". And like all reds intended to be photographed, they look quite different in person than you'd expect.
IIRC, the Gulf racing colors are based not on the main parent company colors, but on a California variant. The official Gulf blue is darker than what you see on the cars. I can confirm this if need be, it was out of either Horseman or Wyer's book.
I have no idea on actual colors, but when we were racing Toyotas, they were specific on their colors and designs. I assume they were tested in how they reacted to being printed in both color and black and white. The designs and colors came from them. In other words, I am no help at all with this topic.
I recall reading about Petty Blue - originally, they had a bunch of half full cans of various paints sitting around so they mixed them all together to have enough to paint a car, and there it was. I imagine today there's a specific paint code for it.
Every once in a while someone's restoring an old Land Rover and wants to paint the engine block the correct color. After a lot of research, it's been determined that the correct color is "whatever half empty can was nearby".
Keith Tanner wrote: Yup, there are very specific colors. I have the Lancia Martini ones, thanks to the shop that painted them via a Finnish restoration shop. They're not Pantone, they're specified as things like "Opel Flame Red". And like all reds intended to be photographed, they look quite different in person than you'd expect.
As a kid I was shocked at how orange the red on Richard Petty's car was when I saw it in person.
Sounds like for my project "whatever looks right is right" will work just fine then. I'd never thought about picking colors to photograph well. That makes a LOT of assumptions about film stock, latitude, and a bunch of other stuff.
Marlboro red looks like fluorescent orange in person. Red's weird.
There was a site called brands of the world when I was doing graphics that had nearly everyone's logos and had colors spec'd. It was a Russian site if I remember so use at your own risk....
LOL...I used that one a LOT back in the day. With good antivirus running.
AMC's colors are Matador Red, Frost White, and Commodore Blue (dark) or Big Bad Blue (light). 
Gulf Racing Color Codes
Powder Blue (PPG 12163) - Triumph Spitfire color, early model years
Topaz orange (PPG 60812 - Triumph Spitfire color, early model years
Royal Blue (PPG 13126) - Thin strip between orange stripe and powder blue.
Keith Tanner wrote: Marlboro red looks like fluorescent orange in person. Red's weird.
the marlboro color is awesome in person. i went to way too many CART races to not have that color burned into my subconscious.
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