The Drum

Design based on a picture of oil and a piston: Adrien Paviot reveals the new McLaren 650 S GT3 Ki’Win livery

18.04.2018

Motul and McLaren GT have teamed up once again for the upcoming season of the Blancpain Endurance championship. Both brands return to endurance GT racing with an even closer collaboration for 2018. The result of this intensified cooperation is quite spectacular. A beautifully liveried McLaren 650S GT3, called simply the Ki’Win. We sat down with designer Adrien Paviot to learn all about it.

What an amazing livery! Tell us about the Ki’Win!

Thank you! The Ki’Win is one of the most challenging projects I’ve worked on, but also one of the most gratifying. The team (Garage 59) and Motul pretty much gave me carte blanche, as long as it had something to do with the brand or with oil. I had so much freedom and I loved it. Everything fell into place as I’d seen a photo of oil residue on a piston. It had beautiful lines and shapes. So I started from there. You can also see that the oil appears to be moving over the car at speed. It looks like it’s moving even when it’s standing still. I can’t wait to see it out on track.

What about the name? What does “Ki’Win” stand for?

The Ki’Win name is a combination of Kiwi and winning. The Kiwi is obviously a reference to the Kiwi bird and McLaren’s long history that started with Bruce McLaren in New Zealand. That’s why there’s also some typical McLaren orange on the car. And win is stands for winning of course, because that’s what the plan is with this car. There is also a sister car, the 188, which has a similar livery but we call that the Ki’Twin.

Designing liveries is a very specific niche that combines car design and graphic design. What’s the biggest challenge?

You really have to take account of the shape of the car and work with that. But the biggest challenge is making sure all the sponsor partners are in the right spot and their logo is big enough. Every sponsor would like to see its logo a bit bigger on the car. Some sponsors have their own colours which they want on the car, but those won’t always look nice with the colours and logos of the other partners.

How did you end up designing liveries for cars?

I started my career in motorsports as a racing driver. When I was a child I raced Go Karts at a high level and later I also raced in Formula Renault. Back then, I started designing my friends’ helmets so that’s where it all began. Even though I’ve designed countless race cars, bikes and boats I still prefer designing helmets.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever been asked to create a livery for?

I’ve been working with Red Bull for a long time now and a while ago I did the designs for the Red Bull Air Race aircraft - that was a very cool one to do.