BMW BELUX ANNOUNCES 'LINE-UP' OF THE 10 BMW ART CARS COMING TO SALT GRAND PRIX CAR WEEK 2025.

The "BMW Art Car World Tour" is a historic exhibition programme organised by the BMW Group on five continents, celebrating 50 years of the brand's cultural and artistic commitment around the world. After Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai and Stockholm, the largest exhibition project in the history of the BMW Art Cars collection continues. The BMW Art Cars collection, which now comprises 20 cars, surveys the history of art over the past five decades: minimalism, pop art, magic realism, abstract and conceptual art, and digital art. The BMW Art Cars collection celebrates 50 years of artistic freedom and visionary creativity.

Some of the Art Cars have actually been used in motorsport. Consider the participation of the very first BMW Art Car, designed by Alexander Calder, in the 1975 Le Mans 24 Hours, or the participation of Julie Mehretu's hypercar in Le Mans in 2024. Each time, these driving works of art are a sign of artists' fascination with the car - a combination of art and design, technology and innovation, motorsport and engineering.

The collection on display in Knokke-Heist offers a cross-section of the art history of the past five decades. From the Alexander Calder / BMW 3.0 CSL / 1975, the primal Art Car that started it all, to the Roy Lichtenstein / BMW 320i Turbo / 1977 fitted with pop art icon Roy Lichtenstein's characteristic 'Ben Day dots'. His fellow pop-art painter Andy Warhol then took on another BMW M1 in 1979. The result is the Andy Warhol / BMW M1 / 1979. Unlike his predecessors, the most famous pop art artist in history did not first paint a scale model but directly smeared some six kilos of paint on the M1 himself. The speed of the painting itself (legend has it that Warhol finished the job in 28 minutes) thereby symbolised the speed at which this M1 would tear into corners.... The unique collection on display in Knokke-Heist goes even further with the BMW 730i / 1990 painted by César Manrique, the David Hockney / BMW 850 CSi / 1995 and the Jeff Koons / BMW M3 GT2 / 2010.

Finally, the most recent BMW Art Car will also be on display; the Julie Mehretu / BMW M Hybrid V8 / 2024. With her design, the artist wanted to create a playground for the imagination. Shortly after the premiere of this 20th BMW Art Car, it appeared at the start of Le Mans with the matching start number 20.