The Car That Refused to Stay a Car

Jul 2
3 min read

For the first time, all 20 BMW Art Cars come together in Munich. From Alexander Calder to Julie Mehretu, the collection follows a car as it slips away from its expected role.

Alexander Calder’s 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL Art Car racing at Le Mans, with the background blurred by speed. — Alexander Calder’s 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL, the first BMW Art Car, created at Hervé Poulain’s invitation with broad fields of primary colour.

A car is built for the road. The BMW Art Cars begin with that fact, then move the language of speed, engineering and display somewhere less familiar.

Frank Stella stands beside his 1976 BMW 3.0 CSL Art Car, holding a model of the car in a black and white archival photograph. — Frank Stella’s 1976 BMW 3.0 CSL, the second BMW Art Car, brought the project back to Le Mans at racing speed.

Each Art Car begins with the codes of the automobile. But once an artist enters the frame, those codes shift. What changes is not only the car’s appearance, but what is expected from it. A machine associated with control, status and acceleration becomes harder to place. It still belongs to the road, but it no longer answers only to it.

That is why the familiar phrase “car as canvas” feels too easy. The BMW Art Cars are not simply decorated vehicles. They unsettle the idea of what a car is allowed to be.

David Hockney paints his 1995 BMW 850CSi Art Car outdoors, with two dachshunds nearby. — David Hockney’s 1995 BMW 850CSi, the 14th BMW Art Car, turns the car outward by making its inner workings part of the image.

The project began in 1975 with Hervé Poulain, the French racing driver and art dealer, who asked his friend Alexander Calder to transform a BMW 3.0 CSL with the support of BMW Motorsport. The car entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans that same year.

What could have remained a single experiment became the beginning of the BMW Art Car Collection.

That beginning still defines the project. Many of the Art Cars were not made only for display. They come from a place where art, racing and visibility meet. The collection includes works by Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Cao Fei and Julie Mehretu, but the cars never fully lose their link to circuits, engines and crowds.

Andy Warhol paints his 1979 BMW M1 Art Car, with a paint can beside the car. — Andy Warhol’s 1979 BMW M1, painted by the artist himself, translates speed into blurred lines, bright colour and visible motion.

From 29 July to 31 August 2026, BMW Welt in Munich will bring together all 20 BMW Art Cars in one public exhibition for the first time. Titled BMW Art Cars – 20 Artists, 50 Years of Innovation, the exhibition follows the collection from Calder’s 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL to Julie Mehretu’s BMW M Hybrid V8 from 2024.

Olafur Eliasson’s BMW H2R Project, a frozen Art Car installation with a metallic mesh structure and layers of ice. — Olafur Eliasson’s BMW H2R Project turns a hydrogen-powered prototype into an Art Car of steel, reflection and ice, opening the car to questions of speed, energy and climate.

A particular highlight is Olafur Eliasson’s BMW H2R Project, based on a hydrogen prototype and rarely shown as a full frozen installation since its 2007 premiere. Its presence expands the idea of the Art Car beyond paint. Sometimes the question is not how a car is transformed, but what it becomes when it is no longer treated as a fixed object.

John Baldessari stands beside his 2016 BMW M6 GTLM Art Car, marked with coloured dots and the word FAST. — John Baldessari’s 2016 BMW M6 GTLM, the 19th BMW Art Car, uses colour, dots and the word “FAST” to turn the race car into a sharp visual statement.

After a world tour across more than 30 countries, the full collection returns to Munich. Together, the 20 Art Cars do not only show how artists have changed cars. They show how an object built for speed can become difficult to define.