If you say "pink warbird" in the aviation community, that's what comes to mind.
The pink P-40 was a popular guest at airshows for many years. It was the personal plane of Sue Parrish, who founded the Kalamazoo aviation museum. It now hangs in the the museum in a place of honor.
The official story is that the pink color was used on P-40s in North Africa in WWII: either the experimental "desert pink" camouflage, or that the standard tan paint faded to a pinkish color when sunbleached. It's also clear that Sue was having a bit of fun with some of the excessively macho members of the aviation warbird community -- the eye above the shark's mouth has unusually long lashes.... ;-)
So if anyone gives you grief about a pink warbird, just hear that lovely V-12 snarl in your head, and smile.
I just looked at some pics on the Salsa site. It looks pretty good. It wouldn't be my first color choice, but certainly not obnoxious. The Warbird is a great bike!
I was almost ready to pull the trigger on a Warbird frame (decided not to this year because I would have a hard time getting parts to hang on it). I would much rather have had pink than the @#1pog508@#&#* flat black they were offering the frame in. Stealth Bomber black is over and done with. I don’t want a bike that looks like the inside of my gas grill!
I have often said the person who chooses the colorways and graphics for Salsa should be flogged, then fired. I have never looked at a Salsa and said “oooh! That looks nice!” (even though I own three of them....). The color choices when I bought my Beargrease frame were so atrocious, I ended up going with a previous year’s frame...in...BBQ black. At least the Hunter Safety Orange logos break it up a little.
Get it real dirty and keep it that way (frame that is). Better a pink bike that you 'ride' than a black bike that you're afraid to get dirty. We're not roadies lol