If your 40th birthday doesn’t call for a special edition teapot, you're obviously not a trouble-prone French racecar. Because that's exactly how Renault has decided to fête the ruby anniversary of its entrée into the high-powered world of Formula 1 racing.
The yellow teapot, decked out in slick black and white racing stripes and complete with little silver roll bar, honors the 1977 engineering team’s efforts with what amounts to an old inside joke. Renault's first Formula 1 model, the RS01, had a spot (well, a lot) of trouble with its pioneering, turbocharged engine. The car tended to show up to the racing lane pouring smoke, so rival team boss Ken Tyrrell dubbed it the "yellow teapot."1
(As the company puts it, delicately, in a press release: “It was foreseeable—and has always been true when new or even revolutionary technologies are introduced—that technical difficulties and reliability problems would crop up.” Yaaas, says Elon Musk.) In the decades since, Renault has won 11 F1 drivers' championships and 12 constructors' championships, so everything turned out fine.
If you, ultimate Formula 1 fan, want to celebrate how far Renault has come with a cuppa, start clicking the second these go on sale in September: Just 40 of the $150 beauties have been made. While most will live at the Atelier Renault restaurant, right off the Champs-Elysées, they’ll also be sold online. No guarantee the ‘pots can pull out the kind of wins their maker has seen over the last four decades, but hot tea is nice, too.
1UPDATE 2:25 PM ET 07/27/17: This story has been updated to reflect Tyrrell's relationship with the Renault team
