At some point, these stopped being cars. What started as a bold idea from BMW in the mid-1970s—handing over race cars to artists—has quietly become one of the most unique intersections of automotive culture and contemporary art. The result is less about performance specs or lap times and more about something far more lasting, where cars are reimagined as canvases. From Warhol’s paint-splattered M1 to Hockney’s cutaway-style 850 CSi that feels like it’s been turned inside out.
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Names like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and David Hockney didn’t just decorate these machines—they transformed them. Warhol’s wildly expressive M1, Hockney’s layered 850 CSi, even Koons’ explosive M3 GT2—all feel more like rolling statements than vehicles. Long before brand collabs and hype drops, this was the real thing.
The 11 BMW Art Cars on Display
- #2: Frank Stella’s take on the BMW 3.0 CSL (1976)
- #3: Roy Lichtenstein with the BMW 320 Group 5 race car (1977)
- #4: Andy Warhol’s iconic BMW M1 (1979)
- #7: Michael Jagamara Nelson reinterprets the BMW M3 Group A racer (1989)
- #10: César Manrique on the BMW 730i (1990)
- #11: A. R. Penck with the BMW Z1 (1991)
- #12: Esther Mahlangu’s vibrant BMW 525i (1991)
- #13: Sandro Chia on the BMW M3 GTR (1993)
- #14: David Hockney’s layered BMW 850 CSi (1995)
- #15: Jenny Holzer and the BMW V12 LMR (1999)
- #17: Jeff Koons’s bold BMW M3 GT2 (2010)
Now, more than 50 years later, eleven of these “Art Cars” are being shown together in Denmark as part of the global tour; a rare chance to see them side by side, not as museum pieces, but as cultural artifacts that still carry the energy of the era they came from. The Art Car World Tour exhibition will be on display from 27 March to 21 June 2026 at Classic Car House.
