Ayrton Senna‘s helmet livery is hands-down the most recognizable in Formula 1 history—if not all of racing. The Brazilian national colors (yellow, green, and blue) have been worn by many F1 greats, but none have made the Verde Amarela more famous than Senna. And while nowadays it can feel that there’s almost too much Senna merch out there, I recently came across what I think is the coolest Senna helmet memento ever: A Honda Civic Type R.
Of course, this isn’t the first time someone’s decorated their car to look like Senna’s helmet, or even his famous McLaren MP4/4. However, this isn’t just a random wrap job by a random person; this Type R has been hand-painted by none other than Alan Mosca from Sid Special Paint. If you know your Senna history, you’ll know that Sid Mosca—Alan’s father—is the man who came up with Senna’s famous helmet livery. Not just that, but he remained Senna’s helmet painter until the Brazilian’s final race and stayed involved with the family and Instituto Senna until he passed in 2011.
Alan worked alongside his father even back in Senna’s racing days and has since carried on the torch, growing the business and doing cool one-off projects like this Type R. There are two videos shared on the Sid Special Paint Instagram account, including one of the finished product posing with Senna’s helmet, but there’s another before it showing the creative process. In that video, you can see Alan painting the Honda in that iconic yellow and carefully drawing the side stripes by hand. As a huge fan of both Senna and the Type R, this is almost too much for me to watch.
Unfortunately, this custom Civic isn’t being auctioned or anything of that sort, it’s actually owned by a private individual. So if you thought about calling down to Brazil and making an offer, you’ll be disappointed. I’m not sure if Sid Special Paint is at liberty to recreate this scheme on another car, but if you’ve got the money to commission such a project, it’s worth asking.
Perhaps what could be even cooler than a Type R dressed like Senna’s helmet would be an Acura NSX. Anyone at Honda marketing reading this?
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