McLaren Orange

McLaren Orange is a historic McLaren paint, originally known as papaya orange but later simply named after the brand.

It was first introduced as the team color on their race cars in 1967. Multiple theories exist as to why the color was chosen, some say to honour a sponsor’s orange livery, while others claim that it was appropriated by the team as the national racing colours of New Zealand or even because it would stand out more on color television.

The color has been used throughout the brands history and since 2017 it again predominantly features on their F1 cars.

This paint is not to be confused with Papaya Spark, which is essentially based on the same papaya orange but with the difference being that Papaya Spark is a metallic paint which thereby appears slightly lighter in tone.