40 years of the BMW art cars

Art meets cars.

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Forty years ago, BMW had an idea. Instead of a traditional livery, why not dress its 1975 Le Mans entry by letting an artist loose?

Painter Alexander Calder was given a BMW 3.0 CSL as a canvas, and so the concept of the BMW Art Car was born. The cars that followed were created by a who’s who of art, from Lichtenstein and Warhol to Koons, Stella, Hockney and Rauschenberg – 17 internationally acclaimed artists on a range of BMW machines.

The story began with French racing driver and art enthusiast Hervé Poulain, who asked his friend Alexander Calder to come up with a design for his race car. Working with then BMW Motorsport director Jochek Neerpash, the first BMW Art Car was created, and was a crowd favourite on the track.

To celebrate 40 years of the BMW Art Cars, exhibitions have been organised around the world – in Hong Kong, at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the BMW Museum in Germany, as well as at the Concorso d’Eleganza held at Lake Como, where the first four cars were on display. These were painted by Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, and lined up alongside the latest M3 GT3 created by Jeff Koons in 2010.

More exhibitions on BMW‘s “rolling scuptures” are planned later this year in New York, Miami and Shanghai

Here’s the art car history in full:

Year
Car
Artist
1975
3.0 CSL
Alexander Calder
1976
3.0 CSL
Frank Stella
1977
320 Group 5
Roy Lichtenstein
1979
M1 Group 4
Andy Warhol
1982
635CSi
Ernst Fuchs
1986
635CSi
Robert Rauschenberg
1989
M3 Group A
Michael Jagamara Nelson
1989
M3 Group A
Ken Done
1990
535i
Matazo Kayama
1990
730i
César Manrique
1991
Z1
A. R. Penck
1991
525i
Esther Mahlangu
1992
M3 GTR
Sandro Chia
1995
850CSi
David Hockney
1999
V12 LMR
Jenny Holzer
2007
H2R
Ólafur Elíasson
2010
M3 GT2
Jeff Koons

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