MS80 Blue

MS80 Blue, the blue of a French formula car of 1969

This shade from the Number Five line carries the name of the Matra MS80. It is a dark, deep blue from the family of tones that France has kept as its national racing color since the days of the first international races, and on a single-seater of the late 1960s it covered practically the whole body.

The car behind the name of the shade

The Matra MS80 remains the only French-built car to bring home the title in the constructors' championship. The Matra car company built it, the Matra International team led by Ken Tyrrell fielded it in racing, and under the rear cover worked a Ford Cosworth DFV V8. Jackie Stewart dominated the drivers' standings with it in the 1969 season. The body was slim at the front and widened at the waist by side tanks, so the blue surface gets a lot of room on a model and every transition of shape plays on it.

Where the shade belongs on a model

• bodies of single-seaters of the late 1960s in French colors
• side tanks and the nose, where the dark blue carries white stripes and race numbers
• blue fields in combined national schemes with silver and white
• stable equipment for a paddock diorama, such as crates, trolleys and drums

Who the color is for

For modelers who build the formula cars of the turn of the 1960s and 1970s and want a blue derived from a particular car rather than mixed by eye. It also makes sense where a whole collection of machines of one era is being built and the same tone has to be repeated on several models made months apart. The widened flanks of the real subject make two large surfaces facing each other on a model, and the blue has to come out the same on the right as on the left, because both get into frame in a single photograph.