Photos: Queen Mary's Smokestacks Being Repainted To Original Color We post color pix
"Cunard Red" dates back to the 1830s, when shipping engineers had to resort to a mixture of bright ochre and buttermilk instead of conventional paint which bubbled off due to the high heat. The ochre/buttermilk mixture stayed on by "cooking" onto the stacksm and the resulting orange/red color (with a black band and black lines) became Cunard's identifying mark.
Photos above provided by Queen Mary. |
(February 22, 2002) -- The Queen Mary is repainting its three smokestacks to their historical color: "Cunard Red."
The job will be completed around the week of March 11, a company release said.
Long after paint manufacurers figured out how to delete buttermilk from the formula (before the QM was launched), the traditional color remained.