917K 1971 White

917K 1971 White, the white of an endurance prototype of the 1971 season

The year in the name is no accident. The 1971 season was the last great season of the five-liter prototypes, and white bodies with colored stripes are among its best-known images. The shade is therefore meant as a white ground under a livery rather than as a civilian paint.

The car the shade belongs to

The letter K in the designation means a short tail, that is the version tuned for fast and banked circuits after problems with the behavior of the original long body. It was with the short-tailed 917 that victory came in the most famous twenty-four-hour race of 1971, and with a distance that went unbeaten for long decades. The cars of that season ran in several liveries of different teams, and on some of them white was the basic surface across which the stripes and marks of partners ran.

Where the shade fits

• bodies of endurance prototypes of the turn of the 1960s and 1970s
• a ground under striped liveries and race numbers
• white surfaces of accessories for scenes from the paddock of long races
• models where white is meant to stay clean and without a warm cast

For which modelers

The shade is for builders of racing prototypes who are working out a white ground matched exactly to decals. The most quoted white livery of that season is the one with blue and red stripes running along the whole length of the body and across the hood. The exact livery of a particular car cannot be read from the name of the shade, so during a build go by the references for the particular kit and take the color as the basic surface of the body.