{"id":384273,"date":"2026-01-02T21:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/384273\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T21:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:24:16","slug":"how-hondas-1965-f1-coveralls-were-meticulously-brought-back-to-life-for-their-60th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/384273\/","title":{"rendered":"How Honda’s 1965 F1 Coveralls Were Meticulously Brought Back to Life for Their 60th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biggest car news and reviews, no BS<\/p>\n

Our free daily newsletter sends the stories that really matter directly to you, every weekday.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re a car enthusiast, you wouldn\u2019t be here reading this otherwise. Whether you\u2019re into beaters, normies, exotics, or some other weird subset of the automotive sphere, it\u2019s safe to assume that you believe car culture matters. But what exactly is car culture, and how far does it reach? I won\u2019t wax poetic and share an enthusiast\u2019s manifesto a couple of days into the new year\u2014it\u2019s too early for that. However, I will share one of my favorite conversations about car culture from 2025, and I must admit, one of the things that made it so great was that it came entirely out of the blue.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about Patrick Calello<\/a> and his business, Honda Vintage Culture.<\/a> There\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve been exposed to his brand on social media ads, or maybe you saw it as a sponsor on one of the best racing podcasts in the business, Beyond the Grid. Or maybe, just perhaps, you\u2019ve never heard of it. If you stick around, though, you\u2019re going to learn a bit about what makes Patrick an authentic innovator in car culture, and what makes him one of the coolest and most passionate racing enthusiasts I\u2019ve ever met.<\/p>\n

Beyond his background, I\u2019m also going to share an anecdote that, quite frankly, would be a total shame if it went untold. It has to do with Honda\u2019s 60th anniversary of its first F1 win at the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix, and how Patrick and his team painstakingly recreated some of the original gear worn by that team, so it could be used at a once-in-a-lifetime celebration in Mexico last year, which I was lucky to attend.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Honda Jerry Perez<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nJerry Perez, Honda Vintage Culture<\/p>\n

From Designing to Licensing<\/p>\n

I connected with Patrick after Monterey Car Week in 2024, when I covered the story of Honda\u2019s first winning F1 car doing an exhibition run at Laguna Seca<\/a>. Some of the team that traveled with the vehicle from Japan wore some of his creations, so that\u2019s how we got to talking. However, he\u2019s been chucking out cool stuff since he was a kid. From tinkering on his Macintosh computer to designing logos for recording artists at 15, he enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University to study graphic design, industrial design, and business. Oh, and he claims to have owned upwards of 40 Hondas and Acuras.<\/p>\n

Having created a successful line of wooden car toys called Automoblox\u2014some of you reading may have owned some of these as kids\u2014he connected with Honda about teaming up on a new model. And, funny enough, it was with one of Honda\u2019s less-exciting vehicles that the journey into licensing and creating cool stuff with the Japanese automaker really began.<\/p>\n

\"\"Patrick Calello <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went to college, I was toying with the idea of actually becoming a car designer,\u201d Calello told me. \u201cI had a subscription to Car Styling Magazine, which was like the car industry\u2019s official design magazine. They were like $25 an issue or something back then. I moved on from that, but later on, with Automoblox, I was able to circle back to these dreams and ideas about designing cars, which led to Honda.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy idea or pitch was: \u2018Hey, how cool would it be to be able to get into the living rooms of Americans?\u2019 These big companies spend so much money trying to connect with consumers, and they spend lots of money on TV and other stuff, right? So, what if someone who bought a new Honda Odyssey also got an Automoblox Odyssey? What if an Odyssey Automoblox came with the car?<\/p>\n

\u201cOne really cool aspect of that Automoblox project was that Honda gave me the CAD file for the Odyssey, like a year and a half before anyone had even seen it! The project ultimately didn\u2019t happen, but the overall idea was to get the Honda brand into America\u2019s living rooms and connect consumers with the brand; that\u2019s really my expertise,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In some of our chats, Patrick shared that he eventually saw a need to give Honda enthusiasts something to wear, something to show their love for Honda, but in a way that was exciting. Funny enough, he explained it along the lines of, \u201cI wanted a fan to wear a Honda shirt or hoodie, but I didn\u2019t want others to wonder why someone was wearing a shirt or hoodie of an Accord or Odyssey. It had to be about Honda\u2019s cool side, so I focused on its rich racing history.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, Patrick\u2019s products, which you can browse here<\/a>, range from vintage Acura tees to HRC jackets, vintage F1 gear, and even wall posters. If you\u2019re a Honda\/Acura enthusiast, or even just a car nerd in general, you\u2019re bound to like a lot of this stuff. And no, this is not a sponsored blurb.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s where the journey started, and it\u2019s led him all the way to 2025, when he set out to create some truly special gear for the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

A Honda Fiesta<\/p>\n

Honda won its first Formula 1 race back in 1965 at the then Mexican Grand Prix\u2014nowadays called the Mexico City Grand Prix. American racer Richie Ginther piloted the Championship-White, V12-powered RA272 to victory, claiming the first-ever F1 win for a Japanese manufacturer. It was a massive moment for the company, which, up until that point, had mostly focused on motorcycle racing.<\/p>\n

To commemorate the milestone, Patrick got to work on several unique, limited-edition designs based on the gear worn by the 1965 crew.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nJerry Perez<\/p>\n

\u201cI reached out and said, \u2018Listen, the 60th [F1 anniversary] is coming up, and I\u2019m here to support you,\u201d Calello told me. \u201cI have some ideas of things you can do.\u2019 I found probably 30 to 40 original photos of a Honda team jacket from the \u201960s, but I focused on 1965 in particular. So, I made the [replica] jackets, and they asked if I could have them ready for the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the jackets, the idea of the polos came up, so the executives could wear them in Mexico, and then we threw that together, and it worked out great. However, the crown jewel of the project is the coveralls, and my enthusiasm for them goes way back to the very beginning. I knew I had to do massive research,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

You can see in the photos below that Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe and HRC President Koji Watanabe are wearing those shirts and jackets. Likewise, you can see the RA272\u2019s crew wearing the period-correct, replica coveralls and hats.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nTOP: 1966 coveralls shown, commemorative poster. BOTTOM: 1965 coveralls replica pattern. Patrick Calello<\/p>\n

\u201cI connected with Motorsports Images and got a license with them, so I was able to dive through their archive photos. I went through probably tens of thousands of images, and the moment I saw these 1960s overalls, I was like, \u2018These are incredible. This is absolutely incredible.\u2019 The team wore these coveralls from 1964 to 1965. But what I discovered through my research, which includes dozens and dozens of books on Honda, is that the same overalls were worn by the motorcycle team as well. They had been wearing those since the \u201950s\u2014probably like \u201958 or \u201959. The difference is that one said car racing team on the sleeve because they wanted to differentiate,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, a Honda associate in the licensing group showed me a photo he had of these coveralls on display in the museum [in Motegi]. And they were like behind a case, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my god, this is incredible.\u2019 I was granted access to their archives, and they brought out these coveralls for me. Most were no longer on display in the museum, but they brought them out for me to analyze. And I looked at them, and I took a million photos, hoping to one day make them. They also brought out two Senna suits, but they weren\u2019t allowed to take those out of the airtight bag they were in\u2014but to hold those in my hands, wow.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nJerry Perez<\/p>\n

\u201cI planned to use the photos for reference and to make the fit with whatever common coveralls they\u2019re using in America now. So, my first sample was based on a pattern from a mainstream brand, and I didn\u2019t love it. Then I took a second trip to Japan, took a billion more photos of every tiny detail, and took hundreds of measurements of everything so I could copy the exact pattern. They took the artwork on the back of them\u2014the Honda Motor Tokyo\u2014 and the bit on the sleeve, and put it on a flatbed scanner for me, so the art is legit identical. In fact, the artwork on the originals is so old that it\u2019s slightly imperfect, but I decided to reproduce it exactly as it is. Back then, the local company that stitched these just used whatever lettering from the local mechanic shops, so there weren\u2019t CAD files for these. Furthermore, it wasn\u2019t always easy to tell the exact color because most of the photos are in black and white\u2014the same goes for the actual materials; were they cotton, etc,\u201d said Calello.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pulled together like a billion measurements of everything. I mean, how wide the stitches are, the pattern of the stitching, there are so many details like the exact dimensions of the buckles and the straps. I\u2019m pleased with how it came together and with having a great partner in my suppliers, as they created an incredible pattern in a tight window.\u201d<\/p>\n

With former Red Bull Racing driver Yuki Tsunoda at the wheel, the RA272 stole the show in Mexico, blasting its 13,000-rpm redline on the same track where it made history 65 years before.<\/a> It was a lovely reminder that Honda is and will always be an automaker with racing in its DNA, and not just any form of racing, but open-wheel racing in its most complex and competitive form.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nJerry Perez<\/p>\n

As for Patrick\u2019s designs, they also stole the show, giving the whole event an air of authenticity and nostalgia. Had those mechanics and execuvitves been wearing different gear, it just wouldn\u2019t have felt as special. And, boy, it truly was a special moment, especially for this author, who calls Mexico City its hometown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m incredibly grateful for my connections in the licensing department for all the help they\u2019ve given me,\u201d said Calello. \u201cAlso, the people at the Honda Heritage Collection Museum were incredible. They\u2019ve been incredibly supportive. We got the coveralls delivered via air freight to Japan on time, and, as you saw, the executives took them to the track in Mexico and couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t do this without Honda\u2019s enthusiasm, and I\u2019m super grateful for that. Honda\u2019s been wearing my gear when they run other vintage equipment, including Nigel Mansell\u2019s \u201980s Williams F1 car. I think it\u2019s important to tell this story because none of Honda\u2019s competitors in Asia can tell a similar story. Hyundai can\u2019t make up a history that didn\u2019t exist, and certainly none of these Chinese brands have this. I think leveraging this brand equity is so critical to the future of enthusiasts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bravo.<\/p>\n

Email the author at jerry@thedrive.com<\/p>\n

As deputy editor, Jerry draws on a decade of industry experience and a lifelong passion for motorsports to guide The Drive\u2019s short- and long-term coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biggest car news and reviews, no BS Our free daily newsletter sends the stories that really matter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,3827,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-384273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-honda","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}