Either my memory is playing extremely complicated tricks on me, or there was a time (late 70s? early 80s?) when there were two Iron-Men in the Avengers, one wearing the original armour in yellow or gold, and one wearing the current armour.
My recollection of this stems from a time when Doc Samson went into Hulk’s mind. They met the Avengers in there, who introduced themselves. The two Iron-Men called themselves “Iron-Man” (the one wearing the old armour) and “the new one” (the one wearing the new armour).
Ding-ding-ding-ding. Rhodey took over the old armour while Tony was off being an alcoholic, but he went crazy wearing it so Tony built him a new suit–the War Machine suit, the bulky silver one.