When did they stop painting Formula One cars with national colors?

Sometime in the 60's maybe? I believe it was Colin Chapman that first put sponsorship colors on the lotus. It's my understanding that In the infancy of F1 all the cars were painted with the national colors of the representative countries. England-Green, Italy-Red, Germany-Silver, France-Blue. Sponsorship dollars changed the painting of the cars.

Some teams had run in non-national colours since the 1950s - for example the British Racing Partnership-entered cars were painted in lime green rather than British Racing Green. That team also scored a "first" by selling the naming rights to their team to Yeoman Credit in 1960.

The arrival of non-trade sponsorship paintwork was at the 1968 Spanish GP, where the Lotuses sported Gold Leaf Tobacco colours. Appropriately, the last Lotus win in British Racing Green was by Jim Clark at Kyalami four months earlier.

Were they ever painted with 'national colours'? I thought each team had their own specific livery, and always did have.

Add Talking to my husband who remember these things, it would seem that in the distant past, English colours were green, Italian - red, German - silver and French - blue. But certainly not 'national colours' (flags?)

Not sure sorry

what..? they would all be red white and blue for the union jack. one green, white, red (Ferrari).