  We present the first colour-magnitude relation (CMR) of early-type galaxies
in the central region of the Antlia cluster, obtained from CCD wide-field
photometry in the Washington photometric system. Integrated (C -T1) colours, T1
magnitudes, and effective radii have been measured for 93 galaxies (i.e. the
largest galaxies sample in the Washington system till now) from the FS90
catalogue (Ferguson & Sandage 1990). Membership of 37 objects can be confirmed
through new radial velocities and data collected from the literature. The
resulting colour-magnitude diagram shows that early-type FS90 galaxies that are
spectroscopically confirmed Antlia members or that were considered as definite
members by FS90, follow a well defined CMR (sigma_(C -T1) ~ 0.07 mag) that
spans 9 magnitudes in brightness with no apparent change of slope. This
relation is very tight for the whole magnitude range but S0 galaxies show a
larger dispersion, apparently due to a separation of ellipticals and S0s.
Antlia displays a slope of -13.6 in a T1 vs. (C -T1) diagram, in agreement with
results for clusters like Fornax, Virgo, Perseus and Coma, which are
dynamically different to Antlia. This fact might indicate that the build up of
the CMR in cluster of galaxies is more related to galaxies internal processes
than to the influence of the environment. Interpreting the CMR as a
luminosity-metallicity relation of old stellar systems, the metallicities of
the Antlia galaxies define a global relation down to Mv ~ -13. We also find,
for early-type dwarfs, no clear relation between luminosity and effective
radius, indicating a nearly constant mean effective radius of ~ 1 kpc. This
value is also found in several samples of dwarf galaxies in Virgo and Coma.
