From 8 to 12 October, BMW is showing ten of the most iconic M Art Cars from the BMW Art Car World Tour in Belgium, at the Zoute Grand Prix in Knokke-Heist. One of the most well-known of the collection is the M1 Andy Warhol painted in 1979 in only 28 minutes, splashing six kilograms of paint on the car.
The BMW Art Car Collection began in 1975 when French racing driver Hervé Poulain, also an art enthusiast, invited his friend Alexander Calder, the legendary American sculptor, to paint a BMW race car. The result was the BMW 3.0 CSL Art Car—a vibrantly painted racing machine that competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Poulain, who would later found the auction house Artcurial, personally participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with that car. Unfortunately, the team did not finish the race due to a broken CV joint, after completing only 73 laps—well short of the 70% required for classification.
Poulain drove in the 24 Hours of Le Mans multiple times, and he personally raced five BMW Art Cars between 1975 and 1999. Most successful was his entry with the Warhol-painted BMW M1 Group 4 car, which ended 6th overall and 2nd in the IMSA class.
BMW saw the cultural and symbolic value of this “rolling sculpture” and decided to formalize the concept, commissioning more artists to create Art Cars using BMW’s most iconic models—many of which were M models, the brand’s high-performance line. The world tour now marks the 50th year of BMW Art Cars, half a century after the Calder-car.
The world tour is the largest exhibition project in the history of this collection, the rolling works of art go on worldwide exhibition at renowned museums and notable art events. It kicked off in Vienna with the art event (R)Evolution of Art at the Museum of Applied Arts, on 20-21 March 2025.
The exhibition calendar ranges from Sweden to South Africa, from the USA to Australia, and is constantly updated. The Zoute Grand Prix has recently been added and is quite exceptional, as half the whole 20-car collection will be present.
In other venues, it’s mostly just a handful of cars, except for the exhibition in the modern Louwman Museum in The Hague (Netherlands), where nine of them are currently displayed from July 3rd to August 31st.
In Knokke, these nine cars will be on display, with the latest #20 from Julie Mehretu added.
- #1. Alexander Calder / BMW 3.0 CSL / 1975
- #2. Frank Stella / BMW 3.0 CSL / 1976
- #3. Roy Lichtenstein / BMW 320i Turbo / 1977
- #4. Andy Warhol / BMW M1 / 1979
- #6. Robert Rauschenberg / BMW 635 CSi / 1986
- #10. César Manrique / BMW 730i / 1990
- #12. Esther Mahlangu / BMW 525i / 1991
- #14. David Hockney / BMW 850 CSi / 1995
- #17. Jeff Koons / BMW M3 GT2 / 2010
- #20. Julie Mehretu / BMW M Hybrid V8 / 2024
This last one, following the regulations of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), is a wrapping of the 3D version of the artwork applied to the BMW M Hybrid V8.
American abstract artist Julie Mehretu has therefore based the design of the 20th BMW Art Car on the colour and form of her painting ‘Everywhen’: alienated photographs, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint, and her iconic gestural markings. She transfers the resulting image motif as a high-resolution image onto the contours of the vehicle captured in a 3D scan.
She said, “It was only after I attended the 24-hour race in Daytona last year that I realised how I could approach my interpretation of the BMW Art Car. I watched the race, the drivers, and the pit crew. I realised that this is about innovation, imagination, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible.’
