Superstition????

" Green cars are BAD LUCK!!!!! "
I have heard this spouted from the mouth of more than one Ol' timer but.........I've yet to learn an explination.
Anyone here know how far back in time this saying goes? It's been suggested that it may go back as far as the horse & buggy.
Anybody???

 

In stock car racing green and gold are supposed to be taboo. Also the number 11 and eating peanuts before a race if your driving. Sort of like stepping on a crack, walking under a ladder, and having a black cat cross your path. Doesn't mean anything unless you want it to.

Frank

 

from what I'm reading... one theory is that the first accident in racing with two fatalities happened to a green car.

 

Big deal, paint your car whatever color you want..........green rules. BTW TFP the new avatar is hilarious.

 

Hasn't bothered the Brits, as it is the official colour of their race cars.

 

i said it once, ill say it again, im not supers***ious, but illl never paint another bike green.

 

Ahh yes...good point.

 

Ahhh yes,the brits with those awesome wins in...when the heck was the last time a brit won an auto event? let alone in a green car?

 

Bentley Speed 8 Le Mans 2003

 

I don't know the last time a Brit won an auto event, but I know a Brit won the Indy 500 and the drivers' championship last year.

 

Sorry...clearly my attempt at humor was ill advised. that said, were either of those guys in a green gar?

 

Yep Speed 8 that won was green just like this one only I think it was #7 that won not #8
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h10/InsaneRob/Bentley_Speed_8.jpg

 

Same guy, Dan Wheldon. Closest the car came to being green was the team name, Andretti Green.

The one green hot rod I like is the Greg Porter sedan..and of course, this one http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107814&&showall=1

 

I don't know where the saying came from but, I met the Big Cheese of Dollar-Rent-A-Car and out off the thousands of cars he buys, he NEVER buys a green car. Said it was bad luck or some ****.

 

I've had bad luck with every green TRUCK i've owned not with cars though?

 

"Green Cars are bad luck."
This is an old, old, old Indianapolis 500 supers***ion. The old United States Auto Club (USAC) drivers were VERY supers***ious. I believe it came from a driver getting killed driving a green car and from the fact that a green car had never won the Indy 500 until recently.

Race car drivers are still supers***ious; only now its about different things. The corporate takeover of racing and the covering of the cars and drivers firesuits with corporate logos has eliminated the preferences of the drivers and car owners for their favorite colors. Now you have Tide detergent boxes driving around NASCAR tracks with Quaker State oil cans chasing them and Dewalt tools trying to drill them both.

In International racing each country has been ***igned colors for their race cars by the FIA. Great Britian: green; France: blue; Italy: red; USA:white with a blue stripe; Japan: white with a red stripe and so on. That is why the British Bentley's are BRG (British Racing Green). Bentley won Le Mans ages ago in a BRG colored car. Jimmy Clark's first Indy 500 Lotus was green. Dan Gurney's car on the same team was white with a blue stripe. Now, we are depending on my over 50 year old memory about a race from 40 years ago. Clark didn't win that year, green car. Colin Chapman's first Lotus race cars were green. Until he got John Player Cigarettes to sponsor the team (corporate money again) and the cars were then black with gold lettering and stripes like the old Player cigarette boxes. Why do you think the Penske team cars are red and white? Their major sponsor is Marlboro whose cigarette packs are red and white.

Mickey Thompson's Challenger I was blue. The reason? He wanted it painted in the USA's International racing colors. However, several years before, MT had had a white car at Bonneville and it wasn't registering on the timing lights because it blended in with the white salt background. Therefore, MT painted the Challenger I blue so the timing lights would "see" the car and still be painted in the "international" racing colors.

Enough, my brain is tired from working to remember all this trivia.

 

I'm pretty sure the car that Jim Clark won the Indy 500 in 1965 was BRG. He was killed a few years later in a racing accident though.

John Force has done pretty well in green cars in the past.

 

The supers***ion started before WW2 with a big green gran toutisimo car.Sorry i can't remember all the details right now like make or country for sure but I think it was Italy,Anyway this was a big touring car. the very first team of driver/mechanic were killed in it in it's first race right out of the factory, and then several subsequent owners were also killed or had terrible things happen to them.In one case it was restored and put into a museum ,it burned to the ground BUT the green car survived.I had a couple articles about this car done in like Road and Track or Car and Driver this was many years ago also had a story about it in a book about hauntings !

 

my green cars, the 57 and the daily beater seem to be the only thing i been any good at lately when i put the key in, now i better knock on wood 3 times, throw salt over my shoulder, and....