When the Australian Touring Car Championship was rebranded to V8 Supercars in 1997, it raised the show to another level commercially and competitively.
The commercial aspects led to some awesome and iconic liveries adorning many entries through not only regular companies, but more mainstream sponsors outside the automotive industry.
Check out just a selection of iconic liveries from 1997-2002 and if we’ve missed one of your favourites, comment on the Repco socials what you’ve chosen.
Larkham Motor Sport
Mark Larkham and Mitre 10 were synonymous with the early V8 Supercars era through its smart liveries in addition to its brand activations.
The hardware chain followed Larko through the trials and tribulations of his program, but it stayed as loyal as can be up until 2000.
Larko’s Falcon in 2000 was predominantly blue and featured a Falcon bird on the side.
Provided the Larkham Motorsport Falcon scored pole at Bathurst and many young kids had the 1:64 of the Mitre 10 Falcon (including this author) due to it being handed over the counter for free.
Perkins Engineering
Normally featuring red and white stripes on a black base, Perkins Engineering switched the livery on Russell Ingall’s VT Commodore in 1999 to silver in support of Castrol’s SLX range of oils.
This eye-catching livery remains one of the best of the era (maybe ever) and was nicknamed the ‘Silver Bullet’.
Ingall finished the championship second in the SLX livery and returned to the usual scheme in 2000 bar a special one-off Magnatec paint job for Canberra.
Gibson Motorsport
Craig Lowndes’ early Ford career was forgettable to say the least, but the ‘Green Eyed Monster’ got the former Holden hero off to a reasonable start to his Blue Oval era.
Not introduced until Bathurst 2001, the scheme was unchanged compared up to this point bar the addition of green headlights covers, thus providing the nickname ‘Green-Eyed Monster’.
A striking black and silver livery designed by Ford designer Nick Hogios is still much loved to this day nearly 21-years on from its first appearance.
During a time of dominance by Holden, the ‘Green-Eyed Monster’ provided hope for the loyal Ford fans.
M3 Motorsport
A coup for a privateer to get backing by a big company, John Cotter and Peter Doulman enjoyed the support from sports drink brand Gatorade.
A relationship started in 1998 between M3 Motorsport and Gatorade following a statement regarding how hard drivers work during a race.
The green livery featuring bubbles was striking and was impressive for a privateer operation.
Gatorade got very involved with the team to and brought out scientists from the US to collate stats at Bathurst summarising marathon runners were the only athletes to work harder.
Paul Morris Motorsport
Big Kev’s Cleaning Products were famous in the early 2000s thanks to founder Kevin McQuay featuring in the brand’s patriotic TV advertisements.
Backing Paul Morris in 2000 after he made the switch to V8s from Super Touring, Big Kev’s distinctive yellow was a feature of the grid until 2001.
Heavily involved in the program through attending events and activations, McQuay was a larger than life figure until he passed away in 2005.
Morris indeed won his first V8 Supercars event in the Big Kev Commodore at Calder Park’s final round in 2001, but this followed a frightening fireball at the start of the Oran Park round the previous year when he crashed into a slow starting Larry Perkins and was subsequently collected by Mark Larkham.
The ‘I’m Excited’ tagline is still used today and Big Kev is still referred to despite it being 20 years since it was dissolved.