BMW's Art Cars, Ranked

Warhol was maybe the best to ever do it. Starting with a race car and an idea to portray the essence of speed, the enigmatic artist applied this paint job in just 28 minutes. Not only is this the most visually engaging art car in my eyes, but it’s also the best canvas upon which the art could have been applied. This M1 racer went to Le Mans in 1979 and finished sixth overall before being retired to museum life.

“I attempted to show speed as a visual image. When an automobile is really traveling fast, all the lines and colors are transformed into a blur,” said Warhol.

The first BMW art car is the second-coolest. Calder’s abstract use of bright and visually dynamic colors on this magnificent race car is unimpeachable. The car wasn’t exactly successful in its motorsport efforts, having entered the so-called Batmobile in the 1975 running of the Le Mans 24 with Poulain, Jean Giuchet, and Sam Posey, the Bimmer failed to finish the race.

Sometimes art is supposed to make you stand back and say “What the fuck?” and I would argue that Danish artist Elíasson achieved exactly that with this piece he calls “Your Mobile Expectations.” BMW’s hydrogen-powered sports car concept was stripped of its body and fitted with a framework of interlocking bars and mesh, before the artist sprayed the car with a mist of water in a cold room over and over again until it gained an ice cocoon.

The car was displayed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from late 2007 to early 2008.

Lichtenstein’s stipple art is practically synonymous with pop art and parody. He was the third famous artist to be asked to color a BMW racing car. Again commissioned and driven by Frenchman Poulain, this turbocharged wonder took the start at Le Mans in 1977, finishing ninth overall and first in class.

The second famed artist to put his mark on a BMW was Stella, himself a motorsport fanatic.

“The design of his work of automotive art was inspired by the technical basis of the object itself. The result was a grid of lines that looked like oversized graph paper,” says BMW.

Unlike today’s grid with seemingly unending black/white/red liveries, Stella’s non-chromatic art livery made the BMW stand out in a sea of colorful racers.

German-born Penck was inspired by cave paintings, creating a series of abstract figures and symbols on the body of an extremely rare BMW Z1. Only 8,000 examples of the Z1 were built, and this one has been in museums its entire life. Interestingly, this art car was finished in 1991 after Z1 production had already ended.

Jeff Koons, perhaps most well known for his balloon dog sculptures, was asked to give the M3 GT2 the art car treatment for 2010. Wishing to reinterpret Warhol’s inspiration, Koons set about making the car look fast while sitting still. Perhaps inspired by Star Wars’ hyperdrive starlines, the GT2 has streaks of color all down it, beginning somewhere in the middle of the front bumper and stretching to the back. This car finished 19th overall at Le Mans, sixth in class.

This piece by Holzer is perhaps the closest we’ll see on this list to Mehretu’s canvas, as it’s the only other prototype race car on the list. Something tells me the two will look incredibly different, as Holzer’s work is typically provocative words over intriguing visuals. There isn’t much here to make the V12 LMR look beautiful, but it’s somehow still one of my favorites.

“Protect me from what I want,” indeed.

“All eyes are upon an automobile. People look closely at cars. This car reflects their gaze,” says Chia.

You’re looking back at yourself looking at this BMW race car. We are all watchers watching ourselves watch. It’s a cycle. Or something. Whatever it means, this looks cool as hell.

Embodying the history-telling artwork of Australia’s indigenous tribes, this BMW features a patchwork of art including Nelson’s dreams in each piece. He considered it a literal “dream car.”

The 12th BMW art car was the first to be completed by a female artist. The South African designer Mahlangu created this design as an homage to her African culture. The pattern is known as a Ndebele, and is a tradition passed down through the generations.

Avant-gardist Spanish artist Manrique added his particular flavor of bright color and sharp shape to the outlines of BMW’s biggest canvas. This 7-series has a lot of real estate to work with, and the artist says he was inspired by the island of Lanzarote for the colors and shapes of this design. The black is a stand-in for lava rock, the green is the rainforest, and the red is the island’s life.

Hockney says the paintwork on this BMW 8-series is intended to represent turning the car inside-out. He “brought to the surface what he believes lies beneath the skin of the car” including the car’s technologically advanced nature. This is ranked 13th, because it’s the beginning of the stuff I subjectively consider to be not great.

The first of BMW’s art car series to be based on a production car was Ernst Fuchs’ “Fire Fox on a Hare Hunt.” I’ve seen better flame paint jobs airbrushed while you wait at the Pomona Swap Meet.

To Rauchenberg’s credit this BMW 635 CSi served as his own daily driver and is the only art car in the series to have been used in regular traffic. The art, however, isn’t my flavor. Rauchenberg took photographs of other artists’ work, printed them in foil, and applied them to the body of the BMW. Interesting, for sure, but lacking something.

Done at the same times as Michael Jagamara Nelson’s, this piece from Ken Done is intended to represent modern Australia in contrast to Jagamara Nelson’s historic Australia. His design is meant to evoke happiness and the positive attributes of living in Australia. The colors evoke “nature, sun and beaches, as well as fish and parrots.”

It’s fine, I guess. I’d drive it, for sure.

There was clearly a lot of effort put into this design, as each individual dot and streak is airbrushed onto this 5er. Japanese artist Kayama “wanted to give the impression of snow crystals in my work.” It is meant to evoke a landscape shaped by a river flowing through it.

Everything from one to 17 is objectively good art, whether to my tastes or not. I don’t know a single person who regards Baldessari’s, um, design here favorably. When this machine made its debut at the 2016 24 Hours of Daytona, everyone was taken aback. There’s a sticker of the M6 GTLM on the passenger side, while the driver’s side simply says “FAST” in a bold non-serifed font.

Baldessari says the car is obviously satirical, and meant to be a commentary on art. I just think it’s boring and lazy.

To Baldessari’s credit, he at least added paint to an actual car in the real world. Multimedia artist Cao Fei made some digital squiggles above a bare-carbon BMW M6 GT3 race car, and you need a special app for your iPad to even see them. Sure. I guess.