By Classic Yorkshire contributor Tony Lofthouse
2025 marks 50 years of BMW’s historic Art Cars project and to honour this milestone BMW are staging a world tour to show off what they call their ‘rolling sculptures’.
The company’s unique car collection began in 1975 when French racing driver, Hervé Poulain commissioned American artist, Alexander Calder to transform the look of his BMW 3.0 CSL ready for the Le Mans 24 hour race. The result caused such a stir that BMW saw the opportunity to create an art series which involved world famous artists transforming some of its icon models.
They included names such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Frank Stella and our very own, David Hockney. Six of these art cars have raced at Le Mans.
Describing his 1979 artistic makeover of a BMW MI, Andy Warhol said: “I tried to show speed as a visual image. When a car is going really fast, all the lines and colours are blurred.”
Unlike his world famous screen prints, Warhol’s pop-art masterpiece of ‘speed’ was painted by hand in just 28 minutes.
The most recent artist to join the BMW Art Car ‘team’ is Ethiopian American abstract artist, Julie Mehretu who last year applied her automotive design onto a BMW M Hybrid V8.
The BMW collection is currently visiting museums and art shows around Europe and beyond. So far, this fantastic celebration of art, design and innovation has stopped off in Vienna, Hong Kong, Zurich, Dubai, Shanghai and Johannesburg.
To see all 20 BMW custom-designed cars click: http://www.bmw.com/en/design/history-of-the-bmw-art-cars.html You can also use the link to download a special art app showing each car in a rare immersive experience.
Well worth taking a look at the website. I didn’t think much of Hockney’s but the Lichtenstein is brilliant.