As of 2024, BMW had created 20 BMW Art Cars. The twentieth was a BMW M Hybrid V8 designed by Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu and unveiled in May 2024.
The project began in 1975, when French racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain invited Alexander Calder to transform a BMW 3.0 CSL into a racing artwork. Poulain raced that car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, establishing the Art Car tradition’s close link between visual art and motorsport.
The collection includes work by major artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer and Jeff Koons. The cars span racing prototypes, touring cars and road-going BMWs, so “Art Car” does not mean one particular model or body style. Another common confusion is the number of scale-model reproductions: some miniature collections contain fewer than 20, but that does not change the number of full-size Art Cars. Mehretu’s car also competed at the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans.