Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/656086
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE THE COLOR OF RACING P104 H ondas are red, Yamahas are blue… It sounds like the beginning of a romantic poem. Yet it brings up one of those little known but always visible questions of motorcycle racing. Just why are Hon- das red and Yamahas blue? How did Kawasaki end up being lime green and how about Harley-David- son's orange and black? The truth is little is known about why the various motorcycle manufacturers have chosen their respective colors. The stories can be found in a few, but for others the reasons are lost to time or buried deep in the company's marketing archives. Motorcycles, more than any other type of motor vehicles, are known by their colors. If you see a lime green sportbike zoom past, you didn't need to see the name badge, more than likely it was a Kawasaki Ninja. To a certain extent the same can be said of the other brands. It's most visible in the world of motocross and supercross racing, where even the scoring icons on TV are color coded by brand. First, the ones we know, or at least think we know about. Molly Sanders wasn't exactly a well-known indus- try name, but if you're interested in motorcycles or cars, chances are good that you've either seen or perhaps even owned the results of his talent. Molly, real name, Rollin Sanders, was active in both the two-wheel and four-wheel world up until his untimely death from cancer in 2010 at the age of 66. In the auto world Sanders had a hand in designing Toyota's auto and truck racing liveries, as well as the Buick Grand National concept car and the Lexus logo. In motorcycling it was Sanders who came up with Kawasaki's distinctive green and the iconic racing yellow and black graphic design formerly em- ployed by Yamaha. Sanders began in the business by painting motorcycles while in high school. Aside from the design and paintwork, Sanders was widely known as an enthusiastic motorcycle rider and off-road rider. He was working out of Quonset hut in Brea, California, when he was approached by Don Graves and Paul Collins from Kawasaki. He'd been recommended to them and they were looking for a paint scheme that would give the struggling brand some distinction and set them apart from the rest of the Japanese makers. Sanders agreed on the condition that they not just look, but also listen to his rationale. They agreed. A month later, Sanders made his presentation to then Kawasaki president George Hamawaki and VP Alan Masek, with a selection of various shades of reds, blues and yellow. When asked if which of these was going to make a difference, his response was "none of them, but I'll show you what will," and brought out what would become Kawasaki Green. Every one of the Kawasaki execs shuddered, but after Sanders explained the why, they bought into it and for 40 years lime- green has been the iconic color of Kawasaki's racing and off-road machines. He later went on to do other graphic treatments for Kawasaki, includ- ing the radical Z1R Turbo in the late '70s. In the mid-1970s it was Graves who introduced Sanders to Yamaha's Ed Burke which led to the origination of the distinctive "Track Graphic" that Kenny Roberts made famous in U.S. and interna- tional racing in the late '70s and early '80s. By the