Oliver White
Honda’s 2007 livery is due to be unveiled at London’s Natural History Museum on Monday, but a sharp-eyed person has discovered this photo in Honda’s gallery on their website – it is apparently yet to be published. It shows the RA107 painted in imagery from Google Earth, and aside from Honda and Bridestone logos, the car is void of all other sponsorship. On the rear wing is a website address – myearthdream.com – which is registered to 19Entertainment (and currently unavailable), the company that deal with Honda’s F1 PR.
Only time will tell if this is actually what Honda will race with during the 2007 campaign, but if they do it will certainly be a different looking car to the normal standard. If Google are indeed the teams new primary sponsor, it will be a smart move by the Japanese motor manufacturer. Honda are really pushing hybrid cars at the moment, and they are developing a lot of new technology all in a bid to reduce emissions and go ‘green’. If Google have partnered with Honda, the Earth symbolism will go towards extending Honda’s image in this key area of the motoring industry.
More news will be announced tomorrow when the official unveilling takes place.
Source: AutoBlog
The new Honda F1 livery does not use imagery from Google Earth. It uses the Satellite Imagemap, a global mosaic of the Earth, which was constructed and supplied to Honda by Planetary Visions Ltd.
More details here : http://www.planetaryvisions.com/earthcar/earthcar.htm
Thanks Kevin for that information. This post was based on the leak of the image shown, but the follow up entry made the next day corrects the Google Earth rumour. A great link, by the way, much appreciated.