Ever since the old joke about “paint your porch, mister?”, I’ve sometimes had the urge to go take an eight-inch-wide brush and a gallon of Boysen to an exotic car. Well, here’s the right way to do it: the BMW Art Cars. The collection, currently comprised of fifteen pieces, began in 1975. French auctioneer Herve Poulain was racing in the Le Mans 24 hours and wanted a unique paint scheme for his race car. He commissioned his friend, American sculptor Alexander Calder, to paint on his race car, a BMW 3.0 CSL. The resulting livery, in striking red, blue, yellow, and white, was the first in a series of renowned artists transforming racing machinery into rolling works of art.
The collection has since expanded to include works by Ernest Fuchs, Robert Rauschenbert, Sandro Chia, and Jenny Holzer. For the exhibition of four paintings, er cars, at the Ayala museum last March, BMW chose four of the more prominent pieces: the Frank Stella 3.0 CSL, the Ken Done M3, and the Roy Lichtenstein 320i, and probably the most famous of them all, the Andy Warhol M1.
Frank Stella, an American painter, is a significant figure in the minimalist movement. He once said that a picture was “a flat surface with paint on it—nothing more.” His 3.0 CSL resembles a three-dimensional graph paper, familiar from your high-school geometry days. Stella’s black-and-white lines seem to signify evenness and precision. He apparently drew inspiration from the technical aspect of the car, and disassociated himself from his usual random style of painting. The BMW 3.0 CSL took part in the 24-hour race at Le Mans. For Stella, a passionate fan of motor racing, it was a very special premiere for his new work of art.
If the 3.0 CSL resembles graph paper, pop artist Roy Lichtenstein’s 320i seems to have been covered by the blown-up pages of a comic book. At least at the tail section, where oversized dots recall his world-famous comic-strip pictures.
According to Lichtenstein, “I wanted to use painted lines as a road, pointing the way for the car. The design also shows the scenery through which the car has driven. You could call it a list of all the things a car experiences – the only difference is that this car mirrors all these things even before it takes to the road.”
Lichtenstein incorporated reflections of a passing landscape, where long stretches of color give an impression of speed. It was indeed fast; this BMW Art Car won second place in its class at the 24-hour race at Le Mans.
Australian Ken Done wanted to incorporate elements from his homeland into his M3 project. For that, he was inspired by the exotic colors of paint parrots and parrot fish. For Done, these animals in particular share the M3’s beauty and speed. As a result, Done’s art car design looks tropical and organic.
Then there’s the most famous art car, the Warhol M1. Andy Warhol, who celebrated mass-produced goods in his paintings of Campbell soup cans, is a natural choice for the art cars project. After all, the automobile is the ultimate manufactured product. And the M1 is, in many ways, the ultimate BMW.
The circa-1978 M1 is first and only mid-engined BMW supercar, built as a homologation special for sports car racing. Guigiaro designed the bodywork. The M1 used a 3.5 liter inline-6, with 470 bhp, and it was capable of up to 850 bhp in later turbocharged versions. BMW originally commissioned Lamborghini to engineer the car’s chassis and manufacture the vehicles, but Lamborghini’s financial difficulties caused BMW to reassume control of the project. The car was later hand-built by the M division, and only 456 production M1s were built, making it one of the rarest BMW models.
Andy Warhol followed a different process for his art car. The other artists paint their design on a scale model, and have it transferred to the cars by assistants, but Warhol himself made quick work of painting the M1, completing the process in 23 minutes.
Warhol said: “I tried to portray speed pictorially. If a car is moving really quickly, all the lines and colors are blurred.” The Warhol M1’s first and only race outing was at the 24-hour race at Le Mans in 1979, where it finished sixth in the overall ranking.
The video documentaries playing beside each car provide a fascinating background to the creation of each work of art. Warhol’s, in particular, is worth watching. Warhol, who bears a resemblance to Bernie Eccelstone, used sweeping brush strokes as well as his own fingers.
The other eleven art cars are also present, in 1:18 scale. Each model is accompanied by an audio recording describing the car and artist.
What’s next for the art car series? A BMW F1 art car would be an impressive addition. Perhaps Bernie Ecclestone himself could paint it.
By Jason K. Ang | Photos By Ulysses Ang
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