Flemke - Is this your McLaren? (Vol 5)

[hurstg01]

CanAm said:

hurstg01 said:

0/10 for my photoshop skills

Agreed
All you have to do is open the photo in 'Paint', zoom in and very gently paint white over the digits on the number plate.
Here's one I did earlier

Couldn't do that on my phone though

[E65Ross]

hurstg01 said:

CanAm said:

hurstg01 said:

0/10 for my photoshop skills

Agreed
All you have to do is open the photo in 'Paint', zoom in and very gently paint white over the digits on the number plate.
Here's one I did earlier

Couldn't do that on my phone though

Pretty straightforward on most phones these days

[hurstg01]

E65Ross said:

hurstg01 said:

CanAm said:

hurstg01 said:

0/10 for my photoshop skills

Agreed
All you have to do is open the photo in 'Paint', zoom in and very gently paint white over the digits on the number plate.
Here's one I did earlier

Couldn't do that on my phone though

Pretty straightforward on most phones these days

I've tried again and edited the original picture....

[CanAm]

hurstg01 said:

Couldn't do that on my phone though

Nor mine!

[Sway]

I was told at the weekend about a F1 crash on the South Coast?

He was driving from Brighton to Chichester to see me, saw the wreck on the way. Told me it was a "dark green, old Mclaren like the one you love". Showed him pics of F1/12C/etc. and he was sure it was an F1.

He was also amazed at the crash - seemingly nothing around, straight A road, etc.

[hurstg01]

The only Dark Green one that it could be would be XP5, the one that was at Goodwood's Members Meeting a few weeks back and is often seen on the MTC Boulevard. Another green one is in Japan, one in Switzerland [I believe, it has a Swiss owner...] and the other is in the Petersen Museum, in the US..

I'd be surprised if it were XP5, I'd be even more surprised if it were any of the other green ones

I would imagine it was a noble or suchlike

[flemke]

thegreenhell said:

S1KRR said:

I always preferred the original Blue. Love this pic too!

IIRC Flemke is a fan of black wheels. They suit brighter colours like the previous blue, better than darker colours. You need the contrast I think.

I believe that darker colour cars should have "brighter" wheels. So IMO Flemkes current blue (almost purple in some lights) should have anthracite wheels, not black

I somewhat agree. I'd love to see the old gold BBS rims on the car now.

Neither image was taken in direct sunlight. The image on the highway, which is in shadow, is representative of what I expected the car to be in most conditions. I like it, although today slightly less so than when I chose it in 2002. The image at the 'Ring, not in shadow but with cloud cover, shows the colour in a lighter state. In direct sunlight, the blue brightened up further. I think someone here on PH once called it "Smurf Blue", which was not far from the mark. In reality it was just too weak a colour.

[Antony Moxey]

flemke said:

thegreenhell said:

S1KRR said:

I always preferred the original Blue. Love this pic too!

IIRC Flemke is a fan of black wheels. They suit brighter colours like the previous blue, better than darker colours. You need the contrast I think.

I believe that darker colour cars should have "brighter" wheels. So IMO Flemkes current blue (almost purple in some lights) should have anthracite wheels, not black

I somewhat agree. I'd love to see the old gold BBS rims on the car now.

Neither image was taken in direct sunlight. The image on the highway, which is in shadow, is representative of what I expected the car to be in most conditions. I like it, although today slightly less so than when I chose it in 2002. The image at the 'Ring, not in shadow but with cloud cover, shows the colour in a lighter state. In direct sunlight, the blue brightened up further. I think someone here on PH once called it "Smurf Blue", which was not far from the mark. In reality it was just too weak a colour.

Is that second image the one that started this whole thread originally?

[flemke]

AlmostUseful said:

If you search back a long you’ll see where I raised the exact same points, I love the lighter blue, I loved the gold wheels. If I recall he questioned my eyesight, state of mind and my taste

If I did, I meant it in the kindest possible way.

[flemke]

Antony Moxey said:

flemke said:

thegreenhell said:

S1KRR said:

I always preferred the original Blue. Love this pic too!

IIRC Flemke is a fan of black wheels. They suit brighter colours like the previous blue, better than darker colours. You need the contrast I think.

I believe that darker colour cars should have "brighter" wheels. So IMO Flemkes current blue (almost purple in some lights) should have anthracite wheels, not black

I somewhat agree. I'd love to see the old gold BBS rims on the car now.

Neither image was taken in direct sunlight. The image on the highway, which is in shadow, is representative of what I expected the car to be in most conditions. I like it, although today slightly less so than when I chose it in 2002. The image at the 'Ring, not in shadow but with cloud cover, shows the colour in a lighter state. In direct sunlight, the blue brightened up further. I think someone here on PH once called it "Smurf Blue", which was not far from the mark. In reality it was just too weak a colour.

Is that second image the one that started this whole thread originally?

IIRC, it started one of the threads, maybe Vol 3, but not the first one. The first one was started by Dave ("PetrolTed"), the founder of PH.
Starting in about 2000, there was a poster here calling himself "Jon Dokic" or something like that. He said that he owned an F1. He used to post comments about his experiences with the car. At that point I was not a member of PH but used to read it, including the Dokic posts about his F1.
After I got my car, I gradually noticed that my own experiences, both with the car and dealing with the factory, tended to be different from Jon Dokic's, although his experiences resembled what I would read in motoring media were - supposedly - typical owners' experiences. I noticed this divergence but it didn't much matter. I never asked the factory about "Jon Dokic", partly because I didn't care but also because they would never mention another owner's name.
Jon Dokic never posted a photo of his car, never gave a chassis number.
Then in the spring of 2003 a few perceptive and sceptical PH members dug down and worked out that there was no Jon Dokic, and that the person using that name appeared to be posting from a terraced house in Leeds (IIRC), which seemed an unlikely residence given Dokic's other claims. They challenged Jon Dokic's bona fides; he did not respond.
A couple of months later, someone came on here to claim that they were a member of Jon Dokic's family, I think supposedly his son. This person reported that, tragically, Jon had died, which they claimed was why Jon could no longer post here. However they wanted the PH community to know how much PH had meant to Jon.
At this point it was pretty obvious that Jon Dokic was not a real name and that the poster had never owned an F1.
I felt a bit offended on behalf of F1 owners. I contacted Dave and told him that, in light of the misinformation about F1 ownership that "Jon Dokic" had spread, if he liked I would be willing to set the record straight. Dave started a thread asking whether people would be interested in hearing from a real F1 owner, and it developed from there.

[flemke]

Google [bot] said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

I just can’t stand black wheels, you lose all detail of what’s there. Aesthetically it’s like trying to erase they even exist.

I couldn’t agree more. Clearly there are folk with better taste than us that disagree, so we must be missing something.

It's a tricky one, I agree.
Part of the problem with silver wheels is that silver is just a default choice by car manufacturers. They use it because it shows dirt less than other colours do, it looks acceptable to most people, and it's obviously simpler to paint all the wheels in one colour and then charge a huge amount for an optional colour than it would be to vary wheel colour according to what (in the designers' opinion) looked best with each individual body colour.

I think probably the best looking F1 with silver wheels is #036, which AFAIK still lives in Houston TX. The thing is, that colour combination suggests a GT or luxury car; one can easily imagine it on a Rolls or Bentley. It is rather effeminate. That's fine, but it's not the feeling that I want for my car. I want my car to be more purposeful than that, more of a sports car. Indeed all the work I have done to my car has been to make it less of a GT and more of a sports car.
Chassis #036:



In this car, there is just enough difference between the blue of the body and the silver of the wheels to create a contrast, some tension, which is what you want. Silver-on-silver cannot achieve that.

On my car now, I am happy with the dark blue. There are probably many other, very specific, hues that would look better on the car, but all I can say is that I looked for a very long time for one and could not discover any. There are for example some intense dark reds that exist in other materials (raw pigment, silk dye, blood) that are great, but as far as I am aware none is available in an automotive paint.

Starting with the dark blue, what colour wheels would be best? I think matte black, but I am open to suggestions.

Edited by flemke on Wednesday 8th May 09:34

[AlmostUseful]

flemke said:

Starting with the dark blue, what colour wheels would be best? I think matte black, but I am open to suggestions.

I feel like if you don't try orange, or at the very least bronze/gold then you're doing us all a disservice.

[Antony Moxey]

Although before my time on PH I’ve seen that story recounted many times on here, however, given the thread title I thought that someone started it by posting the picture I referred to asking if it was your car.

Either way, the very first post in V1 of FITYM was some time ago now with many a discussion had throughout the volumes. I’d imagine there isn’t another car in existence that PHers know so much about as the F1, which is quite ironic given its rarity.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

flemke said:

It's a tricky one, I agree.
Part of the problem with silver wheels is that silver is just a default choice by car manufacturers. They use it because it shows dirt less than other colours do...

Starting with the dark blue, what colour wheels would be best? I think matte black, but I am open to suggestions.

Edited by flemke on Wednesday 8th May 09:34

I'm amazed that manufacturers would use silver because it shows off less dirt than other colours, if that was the reason they'd use dark grey wouldn't they? Considering the mess brake dust makes of your wheels I can't think of much worse colours-maybe white?!

I just always figured they used silver as it was sort of the default colour for them?

Regardless, on a dark blue I'd still just have silver although given how good E88s with gold centres look on a midnight blue 996 or 964 911, I'd be tempted to throw them back on!

As ever, your car, your choices.

Is your pinstripe white? I'm not a huge fan of midnight blue but if the pinstripe was red I think the two would go well although it might require some form of rid interior detailing to really work as a whole.

[thegreenhell]

Antony Moxey said:

Although before my time on PH I’ve seen that story recounted many times on here, however, given the thread title I thought that someone started it by posting the picture I referred to asking if it was your car.

Either way, the very first post in V1 of FITYM was some time ago now with many a discussion had throughout the volumes. I’d imagine there isn’t another car in existence that PHers know so much about as the F1, which is quite ironic given its rarity.

You are correct, in that the first 'FITYM' thread was started by someone else posting that same picture as above. IIRC, Flemke's first introduction as an F1 owner came about in a different thread started by PetrolTed, as recounted by Flemke above, but that had a different thread title.

[Rob_R]

The original poster was Pheader 'Rico'. If I recall correctly.

[flemke]

thegreenhell said:

Antony Moxey said:

Although before my time on PH I’ve seen that story recounted many times on here, however, given the thread title I thought that someone started it by posting the picture I referred to asking if it was your car.

Either way, the very first post in V1 of FITYM was some time ago now with many a discussion had throughout the volumes. I’d imagine there isn’t another car in existence that PHers know so much about as the F1, which is quite ironic given its rarity.

You are correct, in that the first 'FITYM' thread was started by someone else posting that same picture as above. IIRC, Flemke's first introduction as an F1 owner came about in a different thread started by PetrolTed, as recounted by Flemke above, but that had a different thread title.

Correct.
The first thread with that title was started by "Rico" in December, 2005:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=22...
The original image is no longer supported, but it was that same one shown above, with the BBS wheels, taken at the exit of the Nordschleife on a public day.
The first thread regarding the car was started when I joined, in August 2003.

[flemke]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

flemke said:

It's a tricky one, I agree.
Part of the problem with silver wheels is that silver is just a default choice by car manufacturers. They use it because it shows dirt less than other colours do...

Starting with the dark blue, what colour wheels would be best? I think matte black, but I am open to suggestions.

Edited by flemke on Wednesday 8th May 09:34

I'm amazed that manufacturers would use silver because it shows off less dirt than other colours, if that was the reason they'd use dark grey wouldn't they? Considering the mess brake dust makes of your wheels I can't think of much worse colours-maybe white?!

I just always figured they used silver as it was sort of the default colour for them?

Regardless, on a dark blue I'd still just have silver although given how good E88s with gold centres look on a midnight blue 996 or 964 911, I'd be tempted to throw them back on!

As ever, your car, your choices.

Is your pinstripe white? I'm not a huge fan of midnight blue but if the pinstripe was red I think the two would go well although it might require some form of rid interior detailing to really work as a whole.

Agreed that black brake dust is more visible on silver paint than on dark grey, but for the general range of dirt and crap that cars pick up, including road salt, I think you will find that the combination of the absence of colour and the camouflage effect of metallic shows the least dirt. A silver car can be pretty filthy and still look tolerable.

[Police State]

AlmostUseful said:

If you search back a long you’ll see where I raised the exact same points, I love the lighter blue, I loved the gold wheels. If I recall he questioned my eyesight, state of mind and my taste

I plumped for Prussian Blue; lovely and flat, and vaguely 'near'. He wasn't keen.

[flemke]

Police State said:

I plumped for Prussian Blue; lovely and flat, and vaguely 'near'. He wasn't keen.

Prussian Blue is not as clean a colour as I would like. Also, when I used to use it in gouache and watery paint would start to separate on the palette, there would be some green in it. Blues on the green side of neutral are not as intense as blues on the purple side. But I appreciated the suggestion.