Red Ones Go Faster

DA RED WUNZ GO FASTA!!!

—Orks, Warhammer 40,000

Red things just seem to go faster. In fiction, make something red and you can almost guarantee it'll move quicker, as if the colour itself reduces drag, lowers inertia and increases forward momentum. A visual shorthand for getting the point across that an object is zippy.

Truth in Television: Red apparently promotes adrenalin release and feelings of excitement or intensity, which can certainly give the appearance that a red object is moving faster, as well as possibly encourage the drivers of red vehicles to push the envelope more. Also, the Doppler Effect makes things red-shifted if they're moving away from you at a high speed (read:significant factor of C). Don't expect there to be any evolutionary basis for this, however, as it's unlikely any human would ever get to see it with the naked eye.

Examples of Red Ones Go Faster include:

Advertising

"Red goes faster" is the car salesman's mantra.

Anime and Manga

Speed Racer's car has red features.
in the Ranma ½ anime Ranma gets a huge increase in speed when he turns female, and also Red Hair instead of his male black. For female martial artists, red wunz go fasta.
To say that Gundam series has become enamored with this trope would not be an overstatement. In the original Gundam, the only way one could tell apart Char Aznable's mobile suit from any other was because it was painted red and was three times faster than other suits (which would otherwise be identical in appearance). This, coupled with Char's magnetic personality and sheer popularity, has managed to immortalize red suits as belonging to Rivals in other Gundam series. See Law of Chromatic Superiority for further details.
The Outlaw Star is said to be the fastest ship in the galaxy. When asked about the color, Gene had 'em paint it red.

Comic Books

All of The Flash's costumes are predominantly red. (Except Kid Flash, which was yellow & red.)
Averted by Marvel Comics. Quicksilver is a speedster, but his costume has not contained red in recent memory.

Film -- Western Animation

Cars: McQueen is red.
Lilo and Stitch: When Experiment 626 steals a police cruiser to escape, of course he takes the red one. Lampshaded by his (now former) captors.
- Subverted; its only advantage that we see over the mundane greens is a Gatling plasma cannon. With that in mind, since Stitch is so badly outnumbered he gets almost completely shot down in less than a minute. The supplementary material does explicitly state that it is the fastest of the police cruisers, but we never get to see this fact demonstrated.

Live Action TV

In Space: Above and Beyond, there is an episode where the Chigs are shown to have specially modified fighters that can skip across the event horizon of a black hole. They look exactly like regular Chig fighters except that they are red.
The power of the Red Ranger in Power Rangers Dino Thunder is super speed.

Music

Kevin Bloody Wilson's song "Living Next Door to Alan" has this passage:

Good day, Mr. Alan Bond, how you goin', mate?
You got a real flash car, but my one's flash one-A.
And I believe that my one's faster than yours, Mr. Bond,
‍'‍Cause mine's a red one!

Tabletop Games

In the Warhammer 40,000 universe in general Ork vehicles go faster when they're red because Orks think they do. Also the Trope Namer.
- For a small cost, you can even give them a bigger move radius on the condition that the model have a red paintjob.

Tropes

The Red Oni, Blue Oni duo defines the "Red Oni" character as quicker to jump into something than the more relaxed "Blue Oni".

Video Games

Dawn of War: The Orcs vehicle speed upgrade is called "Da Red Wunz go Fasta."
Link's Loftwing in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is said to be the fastest in all of Skyloft. It's known as the Crimson Loftwing. Guess what color it is?
The Simpsons Game has this as one of the many collectible Video Game Cliches.
In Mario Kart 7, one of the customizable tire sets that can be used on a kart is the Red Monster wheels, which have a slightly higher acceleration than the normal Monster Wheels, which are blue.
World of Warcraft has an achievement named after this: "Why? Because it's red." It refers to the rarest of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj mounts - the red one. (It doesn't actually go faster though.)

Western Animation

In the Futurama episode "The Route Of All Evil", Cubert and Dwight take over Planet Express, rename it Awesome Express and repaint the ship red and give it flame decals for this very reason.

Cubert: Leela, help me put these decals I got in my cereal on the ship. They'll make it go faster.
Leela: Really? What's your scientific reasoning for that?
Cubert: I'm twelve.

Although there are multiple colors represented, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Rainbow Dash, and red is the predominant color when she is doing one of her super speed stunts.
In Sym-Bionic Titan, Chan's road racer is painted red.

Real Life

Red cars are often more likely to be cited for speeding tickets than other colors. Partially as a corollary, car insurance companies often charge marginally higher rates for red cars. Both of these are probably due to the tendency of people in red cars to go faster than anything caused by the color.
- Also, red tends to be a lot more visible on the road, meaning they're more likely to be spotted by cops.