Yes I know, yet another BMW, but you don’t often get the chance to see BMW’s legendary Art Cars all in one place. But lo and behold, The Louwman Museum in The Hague pulled off the impossible. Nine of these automotive icons, side by side, including the one that started it all: Alexander Calder’s BMW 3.0 CSL.
Imagine this: it’s 1975. Disco is booming, flared trousers are a thing, and BMW is about to do something completely bonkers. They hand over one of their most powerful race cars at the time, the BMW 3.0 CSL, to an artist. And not just any artist but Alexander Calder, the man who made mobiles dance in the wind and colors explode like fireworks.
Hervé Poulain, a French auctioneer with a passion for motorsport and modern art brought the artist and BMW together. Now, Calder didn’t just slap a few stripes on the bonnet and call it a day. No, he turned the car into a rolling canvas. Bright reds, yellows, blues, his signature palette, flowed over the bodywork like a rainbow on steroids. It was bold. It was brash. It was beautiful. And it was fast.
Underneath the paint? A beast. Powered by a 3.0 liter inline six engine capable of 480hp and a top speed of 291km/h. This wasn’t just a show pony. It was built to race. And race it did, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975. Driven by Hervé Poulain himself, Sam Posey, and Jean Guichet. Sadly, the car retired after just seven hours due to a broken driveshaft. But let’s be honest, by then, it had already won the race for style.
Calder’s creation wasn’t just the first BMW Art Car. It was the start of a legacy. A tradition where artists like Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Jeff Koons would later take the wheel, well the paintbrush, and turn BMWs into gallery-worthy machines.
And Calder? He passed away just a year later. But his Art Car lives on, not just in museums like the Louwman museum, but in the hearts of anyone who believes that cars can be more than machines
Trivia #1 Did you know that Walter Maurer was the executing artist for many of the early Art Cars, translating the visions of artists like Calder, Stella, Lichtenstein, Warhol. He was instrumental in developing aquarelle lacquer techniques, which allowed for vibrant, durable finishes on the cars. The artists would then sign the cars with their signature after approval, but Walter was the actual artist who painted the cars.
Trivia #2 Did you know that there are two of these cars? In 2020, the Artist’s Proof of this BMW Art Car was commissioned by Sandy Rower, grandson of Alexander Calder and president of the Calder Foundation in New York. By realizing his grandfather’s long-held vision, Rower entrusted Walter Maurer who had originally painted Calder’s Art Car in his German studio to bring the project to life once again.