320i Fruit of the Loom Blue

320i Fruit of the Loom Blue

This shade from the Number Five line takes its name from one of the most conspicuous sponsor finishes of the German circuit championship of the 1970s. Blue here is not a complement to the graphics but the load-bearing surface of the whole body: the textile brand Fruit of the Loom gave the car a deep, strongly saturated blue, on which the white lettering and the colored fruit in the badge only then sat. The blue also covered the roof, the hood and the flared fenders, so at a distance the car looked like one continuous surface of color.

The subject of the finish

The Group 5 BMW 320 was created on the basis of the production E21 series, but it shared little with the production car. The new silhouette machine rules of 1977 allowed widely flared fenders, aggressive aerodynamics and the M12/7 four-cylinder derived from Formula 2. In the DRM championship of the 1978 season, attention for this finish was drawn by the GS Tuning team and the twenty-one-year-old Austrian driver Markus Höttinger, who collected seven podiums, three wins and fourth place in the final standings.

Typical use

• The basic body surface of BMW silhouette machines of the late 1970s
• A ground under white lettering and sponsor decals with a sharp contrast
• Deeply blue items of the interiors and cages of circuit cars of the same era
• Adding to a palette for a collection focused on the German circuit championship

Who it will serve

It aims at modelers who build circuit cars with period sponsor schemes and need a blue of matching depth rather than a general signal color. It will also be put to use by those who make their own graphics for cars and want a ground matched in tone to the decals.

Keep the paint in a room free of frost and out of direct sunlight.