Porsche Grello: The Story of Manthey Racing's Most Iconic Livery
In the world of GT racing, most liveries are forgotten within a season. Sponsors change, teams rebrand, and the colour schemes that seemed distinctive at the time dissolve into the general noise of the paddock. The Grello is the exception. A decade after it first appeared, the yellow-green Porsche 911 from Manthey Racing is the most recognisable livery in global GT racing, the car that spectators position themselves to see at the Nürburgring, and the subject of a dedicated fan Instagram account with 15,000 followers. This is its full story.
The Grello is part of the Deckorate Porsche collection alongside the Gulf 917, the Pink Pig 911 RSR and the 935 Apple. For the full story of Porsche's Le Mans liveries, read our Porsche liveries guide.
Manthey Racing: the team behind the livery
Manthey Racing was founded by Olaf Manthey in 1996, the year the original DTM collapsed, leaving its drivers and engineers looking for somewhere to go. Manthey chose the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the 25.378-kilometre circuit in the Eifel mountains that most professional teams approached with caution. He built a team around understanding it completely.
The Nordschleife demands something different from conventional circuits. Its 154 corners, unpredictable weather, and length mean that reliability, consistency and local knowledge matter as much as outright pace. Manthey became the team that understood it best. Over the following three decades they accumulated seven overall victories at the Nürburgring 24 Hours, the joint record alongside Phoenix Racing and a number that reflects sustained excellence rather than occasional fortune.
Porsche is the constant throughout. Manthey has raced almost exclusively Porsches since the team's founding, and the relationship between the two organisations became formal in 2013 when Porsche AG acquired a majority stake in the team. Manthey now operates as a fully integrated part of Porsche's motorsport structure while maintaining its own identity.
Before Grello: Der Dicke
The yellow-green colour scheme that defines Grello has roots that go back further than the livery's official birth date. In 2005, Manthey fielded a yellow-and-green Porsche 911 GT3 MR in the VLN Endurance Championship at the Nürburgring. The car, nicknamed Der Dicke (The Fat One) for its wide bodywork, won three of nine championship rounds that season and secured three pole positions.
Der Dicke returned in 2006 and did something remarkable: it won the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Then it won again in 2007. And 2008. And 2009. Four consecutive overall victories at the world's most demanding endurance race, all in yellow and green. By the end of that run the colour scheme was already deeply associated with Manthey and with Nürburgring success, even before Grello as a distinct identity existed.
Between 2012 and 2015, Manthey used different livery designs. The yellow-green scheme disappeared temporarily. When it came back in 2016, it came back with a new name.
The birth of Grello
The livery now known as Grello made its debut in 2016 at a six-hour race in the former VLN series at the Nürburgring. The Porsche 911 GT3 R wearing the new yellow-green scheme, driven by Patrick Pilet and Jörg Bergmeister, won on its first outing. The name Grello came from the German word for yellow-green (Gelbgrün), compressed and anglicised by the racing community until the portmanteau stuck.
The car won at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2018 and again in 2021. It competed at the Bathurst 12 Hour in 2018, Manthey's first international outing with the livery. It appeared in the DTM in 2023, where Thomas Preining won the championship. It raced at Sebring in 2026 as part of Manthey's return to the IMSA WeatherTech Championship Endurance Cup, where it won, marking the livery's competitive breakthrough in North America.
Each appearance expanded the Grello's geographic reach. What had started as a Nürburgring identity became a global one.
Ten years and a 30th anniversary: 2026
The 2026 season carries particular significance for Manthey. The team celebrates both its 30th anniversary and the Grello livery's 10th birthday simultaneously. For the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours, Manthey unveiled a special one-off anniversary design that connected the modern Grello identity with visual references to Der Dicke: the green-and-yellow roof layout, orange mirrors, and hidden details referencing seven overall Nürburgring victories.
The race itself ended in retirement for the No. 911 when Kevin Estre lost the rear of the car on oil at Brünnchen less than four hours in. The anniversary car was the fan car. Its retirement did not diminish what the livery represents: a decade of consistent identity in a sport where most teams change their look every season, built around results that justify every expectation the yellow-green colour scheme now carries with it.
Why the Grello works
The colour combination is the first reason. Yellow-green is rare in motorsport: most teams gravitate toward red, blue, white or black because those colours communicate speed or aggression in culturally familiar ways. Yellow-green communicates something different. It is visible from distance. It reads distinctively on television, in photographs and trackside. There is no other car in GT racing that looks like it.
The second reason is the number plate. Running as No. 911 is not a coincidence. The car number references the Porsche 911 directly, which means every communication about the car reinforces the model name. When you search for the Grello, you find Manthey Racing and Porsche 911 simultaneously. The identity is completely unified.
The third reason is the record. The Grello has won at the Nürburgring, at Bathurst, in the DTM, and at Sebring. It is not a show car. When it appears at a circuit, the expectation is that it will contend. A livery that is both distinctive and connected to genuine winning creates the conditions for fan attachment that most motorsport identities never achieve.
On your wall
The Deckorate Porsche 911 GT3 R Grello deck captures the No. 911 in the yellow-green Manthey livery that has won seven times at the Nürburgring and is now expanding into global GT competition. For anyone who follows endurance racing, the DTM, or the Nürburgring 24 Hours, this is the livery that defines the current era of Porsche GT racing.
