BMW’s 20 art cars: when art meets automobiles

Who could have imagined that the 3.0 CSL designed by American sculptor Alexander Calder in 1975 would have become the prelude to what today is a legendary series? Nobody, because the idea had not yet been planned at all by BMW’s top management.

The following year, Frank Stella followed his fellow countryman’s lead. He too chose a 3.0 CSL, with which he then took part in the Sarthe’s endurance race. The result was a grid of lines resembling an oversized graph paper: all in black and white, in order to stand out in the race among all the opposing colorful cars.

The third art car was designed in 1977 by another American. Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein used the Ben Day dots dear to him to create the effect of a landscape. Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot drove the car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans to a ninth place finish, also taking the class victory.

This is the most famous Art Car, the M1 painted by Andy Warhol. Today it is, arguably, one of the most valuable cars in history. “I tried to show speed as a visual image. When a car travels really fast, all the lines and colors turn into a blur,” the artist glossed about his work. Warhol applied more than 6 kilograms of paint in just 28 minutes; at Le Mans, the car finished sixth overall.

Austrian Ernst Fuchs challenged himself with a 635 CSi in 1982, the first Art Car based on a production car. The output was the “Fire Fox on a Hare Hunt”: made for exhibition purposes only, it quickly became another icon.

The 635 CSi presented by Robert Rauschenberg never competed as well. In fact, it is the only Art Car to be driven on the road. By whom? By Rauschenberg himself. The artist used contributions from other colleagues’ works, which he then processed with photographic techniques and applied to the bodywork using special foils in which art, nature, and technology coexist symbiotically.

BMW Art Car number 7 was created by Michael Jagamara Nelson, an indigenous Australian painter. In seven days, he transformed a version of a black M3 Group A into a work of art that reflects Aboriginal culture and their perceptions of the landscape. And that resembles a large, colorful jigsaw puzzle.

In the same year there was another contribution from the New Continent: Ken Done designed a second M3 Group A racing car. Differentiating himself from Jagamarra, Done represented Australia in a more modern way: we get glimpses of nature, sunshine and beaches, but also fish and parrots. Like Jagamarra’s M3, Done’s ran on Australian circuits before becoming a decorative work of art.

For Art Car number 9, we go back to a production car, this time a 535i. It was the first car designed by an Asian artist: Japanese artist Matazo Kayama airbrushed the car and, with the help of a special foil printing process, created a stylized landscape resembling a river.

For the 25-year anniversary of the project, César Manrique is invited to participate. The Spanish avant-gardist artist put himself to test with a luxurious Series 7, in which elements of nature can be discerned in bright colors and other abstract forms. Manrique took the nature of the subtropical island of Lanzarote as his model: the black element represents the island’s lava rock, the green represents the rainforest, and the red represents life.

German artist A. R. Penck’s BMW is a work of art in itself. In fact, the Z1, in virtue of its design – radical for that time – with downward disappearing doors, is a milestone in automotive history. To create his abstract figures and symbols, Penck was inspired by cave paintings. What do they signify? To posterity the arduous sentence, because the artist himself never provided any clues to decipher them.

The twelfth art car, a 1991 BMW 5 Series, was the first one to be designed by a female artist. A tribute to African culture, in particular to “our tribal tradition of decorating the home,” Esther Mahlangu explained when talking about the Ndebele decorative motif: a South African tradition passed down from generation to generation, exclusively to women.

Sandro Chia unleashed his imagination onto a M3 GTR prototype. He himself asked to take part in the series, and the result is impressive: anyone looking at his work has the feeling of being observed from all sides by the faces imprinted on the car body. “All eyes are upon it. People look closely at cars. The one I have painted here reflects their gaze,” Chia commented.

In 1995, British superstar David Hockney joined the stellar names already on the list. For this Art Car, however, it was the House of the Helix that wooed the artist, with perseverance and success. This 850 CSi is the final output of a long process in which Hockney “disassembled” the car through paint to bring out what he believes lies under the skin of the vehicle – the car body – in other words its technology.

At first glance, it might look like fast art, but Jenny Holzer’s V12 LMR – which participated in the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans – is actually the catalyst for precise messages. The US-based artist, best known for her critical statements designed to stimulate thought, applied blocky phrases to this single-seater racing car. Among them is a peremptory “Protect me from what I want.” Are you wondering what that means? Well, then Holzer achieved her goal.

The work of this Danish – yet Icelandic-born – artist represents a break with all previous Art Cars, because at first glance, the car cannot even be seen: we are in front of a giant cocoon. Renowned for his work on nature and physical phenomena, Elíasson wraps this hydrogen-powered racing prototype in a shell made of small metal plates, sprinkled with water in a huge cold room to generate an ice armor.

Could Jeff Koons possibly be missing from this ensemble? Of course not. In 2010, with him pop art makes its return to best express the concept of speed. This M3 GT2 seems to have flown through splashes of bright color, which highlight a livery that is pure power. So much so that, in the same year, the car took part – like many of its siblings had – in the legendary French endurance race.

John Baldessari’s M6 GTLM comes after six years of fasting – in art car terms. The Californian artist brings his styling elements into play in a very minimal way, but on a large scale. The macro lettering on the driver’s side – FAST – speaks volumes, summarizing the essence of this racing supercar. “It is definitely the fastest work of art I have ever created,” Baldessari emphasized.

This Art Car was created by multimedia artist Cao Fei to celebrate carbon, which, as we know, abounds on racing cars. The Chinese artist chose the structure of the element as the background for his work, but you will need to use a specific app to get the full effect. Thanks to augmented reality, in fact, the race car becomes the focus of a storm of colors that is unleashed above the vehicle.

Almost 50 years after the first Art Car, here’s number 20 – the latest, to date, in the fascinating series we just told you about. Unveiled in early summer, the BMW M Hybrid V8 created by Julie Mehretu will take part in the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours in the LMDh category. “I’ve loved cars for most of my life, as toys, as objects, as possibilities,” said the Ethiopian-born artist. “I’m really excited to have worked on the next BMW Art Car more than anything. The thrill of the speed, the 24 Hour race of Le Mans and what is possible to invent in hybrid and fully electric vehicles as future modes of play and pushing ahead into new terrains of transportation and motorsports.”