Most of these cars were destined to be raced into the ground on track, not preserved behind glass for people to circle and photograph. But from July 29th to August 31st, BMW Welt in Munich is doing something the BMW Art Car Project has never done in its 50-year history — bringing all 20 works together under one roof for the very first time.
The story starts in 1975. French racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain enlisted his friend, American sculptor Alexander Calder, to paint the BMW 3.0 CSL he was set to race in that year's 24 Hours of Le Mans. Calder's bold, primary-color paint job turned out so well that BMW decided to turn it into an ongoing program. Since then, names like Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Jeff Koons, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol have all left their mark on this rolling canvas. Tracing back further, the idea of turning production cars into art actually predates the official program — Janis Joplin's Porsche 356 and John Lennon's Rolls-Royce Phantom V were both given psychedelic paint jobs back in the 1960s, though those weren't part of any official initiative.
In 1977, Lichtenstein took a BMW 320i Group 5 race car as his canvas, applying his signature dots and speed lines to translate comic-panel visuals onto the car's body. Two years later it was Warhol's turn — he applied acrylic paint directly onto the shell of a BMW M1 Group 4, with lines and blocks of color executed in one continuous motion. In 1995, Hockney transformed a BMW 850 CSi into a playful faux X-ray; in 1999, Holzer covered a BMW V12 LMR Le Mans prototype with her trademark text-based work — and that same year, the car actually won at Le Mans.
