Petrol & Ink

Racing posters

Racing posters without a team badge: three original artworks of early motor racing, a 1930s racer cresting a hill at dawn, a cliff-top hairpin and a 1950s pit lane. Each is printed to order, from an A4 poster to a framed print or canvas, with free UK delivery.

Explore Apex at Dawn: formats and prices →

From £15.99 · Poster

Apex at Dawn
From this collectionApex at Dawn

Artworks and prices

Open one for its formats and sizes. Free UK delivery is in every price.

The short version. The photograph of a race belongs to whoever took it, and the marks and liveries in it belong to the teams, so racing wall art built on either one carries a licence fee inside the price. These three are car artwork instead, printed to order, so they cost what a print costs and they show a moment, not a marque.

What each one is of

Apex at Dawn is a 1930s open-wheel racer cresting a hill into the sunrise with dust trailing. It is the earliest kind of racing there is, before aerodynamics were a discipline, when the car was a chassis with an engine in the front and a person sitting on top of it. Ochre, cream and a signal red, and it hangs warm.

The Hairpin is a vintage racer caught mid-drift: tail wide, dust flying, a cliffside bend above the sea. It is the picture for anyone whose interest in racing is an interest in car control, because the whole composition is about a driver holding something that has already let go.

Pit Lane, 1955 isn't about a car at all. Mechanics swarming a stripped racer under warm lamplight, oil cans, stacked tyres, everyone doing something. It is the argument that racing is a trade before it is a spectacle, and it is the one to give somebody who has ever rebuilt anything.

Why there is no licence fee in the price

Apex at Dawn in natural wood, a 1930s open-wheel racer cresting a hill at sunrise.
No team, no livery and no number. The light and the hill are the subject.

We don't hold a licence for any team, maker, livery, race number or driver likeness, and nothing here is sold as licensed merchandise. These pictures are about the parts of the sport that no one owns: the light, the corner and the crew. That turns out to be enough.

If the specific championship is the point, not the racing, the grand prix page explains what can and can't fairly be sold. If the era matters more than the sport, the vintage posters put these beside a workshop scene and a single-line roadster.

Living with them

The three sit well as a run, with the pit lane in the middle between the two racing scenes. The wall is the stage that deals with size and frame properly.

Questions, answered

Are these prints of real racing cars?
No. They are car artwork in the spirit of each era, printed to order, and they are not sold as licensed merchandise of any team or maker.
What is the difference between these and the vintage car posters?
These three are about racing: the climb, the corner and the pit lane. The vintage page puts the same three beside a workshop scene and a 1930 roadster in single line, for buyers who care about the period more than the sport.
Which one suits a garage or a workshop?
Pit Lane, 1955. It is the only one on the page about the people working on the car, not the car itself, and it reads properly on a breeze-block wall.
Can I have a racing print of my own car?
Yes, with Your car as art. Upload a photograph and choose the vintage racing poster style, and your own car is repainted in that language. Nothing is charged until you have seen it.

Next in the art

Grand prix art, and the licence question →

Grand prix wall art without a licence fee: three original pictures of motor racing’s early decades, printed to order. A print of a real car in a real season’s colours is licensed merchandise, and we don’t hold a licence, so this page is plain about what you get instead.

Try it

Upload a photograph of your car, pick one of nine styles, and review the result before ordering. Three free previews a day, verified email and no card.

Try it on your own car →

Or the photograph itself, printed as it is