COOL TWIN THING

OF ALL THE AUTOMOTIVE PAINT SCHEMES THERE’VE BEEN OVER THE PAST 100 YEARS OR SO, SOME’VE REACHED ALMOST LEGENDARY STATUS – MARLBORO, JOHN PLAYER SPECIAL, SUBARU, CASTROL, MARTINI RACING, THEY’RE ALL INSTANTLY RECOGNISABLE. THE MOST FAMOUS, THOUGH, IS PROBABLY THE GULF OIL BLUE AND ORANGE.

- NIK

Although Gulf Oil started back in the early part of the 20th Century, it wasn’t really until the 1960s that the distinctive blue and orange livery became famous. The first cars to wear the colours were the Ford GT40s and Porsche 917s raced at Le Mans; the car driven by the legendary Steve McQueen in the film ‘Le Mans’ was a Gulf Porsche 917, and other famous names who piloted Gulf livery cars included Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell. Other marques associated with the brand were/are Audi, Aston Martin, McLaren, and Lamborghini, and the Gulf Oil scheme's been copied on to a large number of road cars and bikes too over the years.

The latest bike we’ve seen wearing the famous design is this one: Neil Ormston’s 125 Rebel Honda, built for him by a talented outfit called Twin Thing Custom Motorcycles down in Waterlooville in Hampshire who specialise, as you can probably surmise, in bikes with just two cylinders, and’ve built a fair few very cool bobbers and street-scramblers, a large proportion of which are based on learner-legal 125cc bikes.