RE: THE !!!!!! airliner

Yes, Mongu was right with his first answer. Concorde was for many years the only aircraft in BA’s fleet that was painted white (the rest where silvery off-white) due to the fact that the skin heats up phenomenally due to friction with the air. I often wondered whether the cause of the rudder problems on Concorde (a few years ago now) were because the top of the fin was painted and occasionally exposed to more load than originally thought.

I would guess that Pepsi would have preferred the prestige of their colour scheme being allowed to go supersonic.