Identification help needed

[myponyrocks]

Not your normal ID thread. My local group here in the UK is trying to find out what the story is behind offset stripes. One of the members had this toy (or one similar) growing up.

Mettoy Corgi diecast No.325 Ford Mustang Fastback 2+2 1965-69

After a lot of google searching I can't find anything. I'd like to know the answer myself now as I have a few hours invested in searching.

And when some one figures it out in one key word, please slap me...

So questions are

1. What is the history, reasoning behind offset stripes. I think it's soley for ID purposes. Wiki has center stripes being for ID and Alignment in early racers

2. What is the history of the car the toy is modeled after and why such a different strip scheme than the center stripes that were rare on non-racers even in that time frame?

*EDIT* One of the guys found this while I was posting, but there's some possible answers to come from you guys as well I suspect.

65/66 Racing Stripes - Vintage Mustang Forums

 

[zookeeper]

While I can't speak for that exact car, I can tell you that during the late '60's assymetrical styling was big among certain customizers, and even found it's way onto a few race cars. I would suspect this is the reason behind this car. If you want to see examples of severe assymetrical styling, look at some of Ed Roth's cars, the Mysterion had twin 409 Fords, and one headlight. The Orbitron had one offset headlight as well, and the Surfite had the driver's compartment offset to accomodate a side-mounted surfboard. These cars were all built during the mid-to-late 1960's and other, less extreme cars had assymetrical such as paint treatments. It was just another new style.

 

[krash kendall]

This goes back to the early days of road course racing.

The offset stripes originally served the purpose of a visual cue to the driver as to how his car was tracking around corners. They were in line with the driver's view and gave telltales of the rearend slipping. Of course, on centre driver cars the stripe was centred.

The centred racing stripes you see on post-war production cars are merely styling and serve no practical purpose.

 

[rbohm]

when ford went rally racing in europe with the first gen falcons, they used offset stripes to the drivers side, so what krash said makes sense.

 

[bnickel]

i believe they were also to help identify the country of the car entered in the race. for instance white with blue stripes was the designated USA color combo for FIA competition, i'm not absolutely sure what it was for Rallye cars but i think white with red stripes was what used in rally races for the falcons