Castrol TOM’s Supra livery rides again — in NASCAR

The iconic red, green, and white livery from the JGTC Castrol TOM’s Supra is making a comeback, but not on a Supra, Toyota, or even in Super GT. The reincarnated colors will instead be emblazoned on the No.6 Ford Mustang of Brad Keselowski in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Oil company Castrol has sponsored many different makes and models of cars over the years in a variety of racing series. Typically, the graphic scheme will vary with each automotive marque or team. For example, on the TOM”s Supra that Keselowski was inspired by, Castrol branding took the form of a white base with red and green swirls when it ran in JGTC from 1995 to 2001. When Castrol sponsord Hondas like the JGTC Mugen NSX, on the other hand, its branding was represented by a large red and green swatches over a black base.

The Castrol TOM’s Supra actually carried the livery over from Toyota’s WRC cars, which began running the livery in 1993 on the ST185 Celica GT-Four. As it happens, one of them wore Keselowski’s No.6 racing number. The Castrol-Toyota partnership has been quite successful, with two WRC championships in 1993 and 1994, as well as JGTC championships in 1997 and 1999.

Alas, the livery’s return will be brief, as it’ll only appear on Keselowski’s RFK Racing Mustang during NASCAR’s Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway the weekend of May 10. Still, if you had told us, especially back when the Castrol TOM”s Supra was actually racing, that one day a NASCAR team would decorate one of its own cars with its livery, we would’ve never believed it. Back then it was absolutely unthinkable that the most American of motorsports would even acknowledge, much less pay homage to, a Toyota.

The initials in Keselowski’s team, RFK Racing, stand for Roush Fenway Keselowski. That Roush is Jack Roush, the famously Ford-loyal team owner. Roush was fiercely opposed to Toyota joining NASCAR at all, and when they did in 2007, Roush declared “war” on the Japanese carmaker. The following year Roush got into a feud with Toyota’s general manager Lee White that seemed to turn personal, with Roush likening Toyota’s entry into NASCAR to Pearl Harbor. There’s an entire subsection on Roush’s Wikipedia page titled “Opposition of Toyota“.

But hey, if Jack Roush’s own team can run a tribute car to one of Toyota’s most famous racers, then things really have changed. We eagerly await the appearance of a Camaro wearing Raybrig or Calsonic livery.

via The Drive.