My Wife brought up a good question last night and I couldn't find the answer anywhere on a Google or a HAMB search. Thought the knowledge here may help me find the answer. When was the color Yellow first used as a Factory color? When was the first Car/Hot Rod painted Yellow? Which Company introduced the color? *The conversation started while we were watching Mad Fabricators and I said I didn't like the yellow coupe, "Why?" she asked, Because it's yellow. "So" she says. I said they didn't have yellow cars in 1934! "Sure they did" she said. ........well, I don't think so, but I guess I'm going to find out. Lord help me if I'm wrong!!!
"................The 'Yellow Taxicab Co.' was incorporated in New York on April 4, 1912. Its fares that year started at 50¢/mile (about $11.38 today.)................." "............The Yellow Cab Company of Chicago (not to be confused the Yellow Taxicab Co.) was founded by John Hertz in 1914. Their specially designed taxicabs were powered by a 4-cylinder Continental engine equipped with a purpose-built taxicab body supplied by the Racine Body Co., of Racine, Wisconsin.[2] According to Yellow Cab Co. tradition, the color (and name) yellow was selected by John Hertz as the result of a survey by the University of Chicago which indicated it was the easiest color to spot..........."
i can't say this was the first hot rod painted yellow , but this is the first i saw that got me excited
Here is one from 1903. You should listen to your wife more often. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28439790@N03/5207726610/
Just because Henry Ford declared "You can have any color you want as long as it's black" doesn't necessarily mean that the whole world lived in black and white...nor the rest of the world was satisfied with black cars...!!! R-
This one (Ed Pink's) in the late 40's early 50's... And then my friend Scott's "Jeweler's Jewel" from R&C 1955 and how it looks currently.
Be pretty hard to say beyond a shadow of a doubt or prove what you said is true about what the first hotrod to be painted yellow was. Yellow cars have been around for ever, maybe 34 Fords didn't come from the factory that way but we are not restorers we are hot rodders. As far as needing a reason to not like yellow I just don't get it. If I don't like something I don't make any excuses I just don't like it.
I was gonna make a smart ass comment on the size of that picture lol... took me a minute to find the yellow car lol
1895!!! Damn. I Lose!!! Thanks for the replies. Pretty interesting stuff. I had forgot about the Marmon Wasp! Ed Pinks car, WOW! That's badass right there. Porknbeaner - I do like yellow cars, my first one was an '80 Monte Carlo, Corvette Yellow with the standard red and orange graphis of the day. The Coupe in the video was REALLY Yellow and just got the conversation started. Thanks again for the help, I gotta eat some Crow now.
i have chip books dating back to 1901 that have yellows in them....also have some wagon and sleigh(dont forget Studebaker and others started as wagon mfg.) that date to the 1870s....lets also not forget that almost all the coca cola trucks dating back to the ealy 20s were yellow with red lettering
One of the first and most basic elemental colors. 79 BCE, a Roman war chariot had a yellow ocre paint on it, it had spinners too, little sharp though, the guy at detail your chariots r us would cut himself all the time, 2 horse power model, came with or without a war archer for picking off mongols. First race at the new and improved Hippodrome, loser buys the Emperor lunch...with his head in a basket, of course.
My 34 Ford pickup was an old Connecticut power company truck and it was yellow from the factory,probably a fleet order though.I think you could get Model A's in yellow too,as I have seen a lot of restored ones yellow so I think its a stock color.
From Jan 10 Hot Rod article. Hope I don't get in trouble. Love the mono chrome look on the 34. And we all thought Sullivan was the first.