First things first...

So I find myself sitting here with a blank slate. My locost only exists in my head, and I'm finally ready to start the research, concepting and design process. It's only logical that I start with the most important details, namely, what colors to paint the car.

Sure, things like engine and suspension details are important. But this is what really matters. Casual onlookers, curious friends and ambivalent wives only care about how the car looks.

Lotus/Caterham Sevens often sport a "lipstick" and stripe paint scheme as shown on this Caterham Classic. I love this look, and I think that's the direction I'm going in. As far as the actual color scheme is concerned, I've got other ideas...

You can't swing your arms nowadays without hitting a Red Bull sponsored race car. They're everywhere. And as much as I'd rather drink gasoline than a Red Bull, I think that they're the coolest looking cars in the racing world.

I don't think it's the graphics so much as it is the basic color palette that makes the scheme work over a variety of cars. Doing some web research, I've found that the colors break down like this:

On a locost, he dark blue would make a great base color, the mustard-gold-yellow is a great stripe color, and that crimson red is perfect for accents or additional striping.

I don't know exactly how these translate into real colors, but for right now this seems like a pretty good plan of attack. Perhaps when I get better at Photoshop, I can do a cool rendering of the final product.