BMW Art Car World Tour Starts U.S. Leg This Week at the 2025 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance®.

• The BMW Art Car Collection turns 50.
• 20^th BMW Art Car by Julie Mehretu makes North American debut alongside Andy Warhol’s iconic masterpiece.
• BMW Art Car No. 4, by Andy Warhol to be inducted into the U.S. Library of Congress’ National Register of Historic Vehicles in September. 
• BMW Art Car No. 20 by Julie Mehretu to be presented at The Bridge concours event in Bridgehampton, NY by the artist herself. 

Woodcliff Lake, NJ – August 14, 2025… Over the past 50 years, some of the world’s most important and highly regarded artists have turned twenty BMWs into the BMW Art Car collection. Several of these rolling masterpieces have also competed in top racing events including the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Daytona. During the 74^th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance^® in Monterey, CA this week, car enthusiasts, art buffs and motorsport fans alike are being treated to a rare display of two spectacular examples from BMW’s storied collection. For the first time ever, BMW Art Car No. 20 by New York based contemporary artist Julie Mehretu will be presented in North America. Mehretu’s work will be on display alongside one of the collection’s most be beloved examples — BMW Art Car No. 4 by legendary pop art icon Andy Warhol.

The BMW Art Car World Tour took flight this year in celebration of 50 years of the BMW Art Car collection. The display during Monterey Car Week marks the beginning of the U.S. leg of the BMW Art Car World Tour which celebrates the storied collection in its jubilee year around the globe from Vienna to Hong Kong and Shanghai, from Dubai to Marrakech and Milan.

After Monterey, the Mehretu Car will head to Bridgehampton, NY, accompanied by the artist herself for this year’s edition of The Bridge—an esteemed East Coast collector car event. Mehretu will be joined by BMW Group Head of Arts & Culture, Dr. Thomas Girst, who will host a special presentation for media and VIPs on September 13.

Meanwhile, the Warhol Car will visit Washington DC to be inducted into the U.S. Library of Congress’ National Register of Historic Vehicles. The car will be displayed on the National Mall during a week-long celebration presented by the Hagerty Drivers Foundation.  

The BMW Art Car Collection.

The BMW Art Car program was started in 1975 when French racing driver and art dealer Hervé Poulain, together with then BMW Head of Motorsport Jochen Neerpasch, asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to paint a car. The result was a completely reimagined BMW 3.0 CSL, which went on to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975 and became a crowd favorite. In the years that followed, art icons like Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, and Julie Mehretu have enriched the collection, each in their own individual style.

The BMW vehicles that have been turned into works of art using a wide variety of graphic and artistic techniques are as different as the artists themselves—from pure racing thoroughbreds to production vehicles and rare sports cars. The results are all vastly different. No two vehicles are alike. BMW Art Car collaborators are selected by an independent worldwide jury of gallerists and curators, and the artist always maintains complete creative freedom throughout the entire process.

BMW Art Car No. 4 by Andy Warhol (1979).

When Poulain received American pop artist Andy Warhol’s proposal for a racing 320i that BMW (with Poulain as one of the drivers) was to enter in the 1978 24 Hours of Le Mans, they saw a problem. The jet-black paint and flowery mauve overlay Warhol had created covered the entire vehicle including the windows, making driving impossible. So, BMW Motorsport suggested that Warhol try something else, this time on a new prototype BMW Motorsport had been working on to go head-to-head against Porsche in Group 4 racing: the M1.

Warhol’s addition to the BMW Art Car collection came during a period when the artist was experimenting with abstraction and gestural painting. In a departure from the pop iconography that defined much of his earlier work, Warhol’s BMW Art Car embraced a more visceral, dynamic approach. Poulain himself described Warhol’s creative process as performative. Warhol applied over thirteen pounds of Sikkens polymer-based paint by hand in just 28 minutes. The resulting brushstrokes, drips, fingerprints, and scratches make the work feel deeply human and embody a uniquely personal expression. “I attempted to show speed as a visual image. When an automobile is really traveling fast, all the lines and colors are transformed into a blur,” he said in explanation of his work.

BMW Art Car No. 4 proved that a work of art can be not only beautiful, but also lightning fast around the racetrack. In 1979, German race driver Manfred Winkelhock, together with Poulain and Marcel Mignot, took the unique mid-engine BMW M1 Group 4 to second place in its class during the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans.

BMW Art Car No. 20 by Julie Mehretu (2024).

Space, movement, and energy have always been central motifs in Julie Mehretu's work. For the design of BMW Art Car No. 20, the Ethiopian born, New York based contemporary artist transformed a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional representation, with which she succeeded in bringing dynamism into form. Mehretu used the color and form vocabulary of her monumental painting “Everywhen” (2021-2023) as a starting point for her design. Its abstract visual form results from digitally altered photographs, which are superimposed in several layers of dot grids, neon-colored veils, and the black markings characteristic of Mehretu's work.

The fusion of image and vehicle was realized with the help of 3D mapping, with which the motif was transferred to the contours of the vehicle. The elaborate lightweight foiling allowed for the fully transformed BMW M Hybrid V8 to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2024. Mehretu’s creation made its World Premiere at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on May 21, 2024, and was then presented by the artist at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como amongst six other BMW Art Cars that had also raced at Le Mans.

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BMW Group in the United States.

BMW of North America, LLC was established 50 years ago to support the sales, marketing and distribution of BMW automobiles in the U.S. BMW Motorrad was brought into the fold in 1980. In 1993 BMW Group Financial Services NA, LLC was founded, and one year later BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC began assembling vehicles in South Carolina. In 2002 and 2003, BMW Group established MINI USA, and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, LLC relaunching two iconic brands and rounding out its product portfolio.

Today, the BMW Group has a nationwide corporate footprint in the U.S. which consists of nearly 30 locations in 12 different states. Beyond the National Sales Company and Financial Services headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, NJ, its manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and numerous other operational facilities, BMW Group in the U.S. also includes Designworks, a strategic design consultancy in Santa Monica, CA, BMW Group Technology Office USA, a technology research and development center in Silicon Valley, and BMW i Ventures, a venture capital fund, also in Silicon Valley.

BMW Group Plant Spartanburg is the largest single BMW production facility in the world, and the global center of competence for BMW Sports Activity Vehicles including the X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, and XM. The plant assembles more than 1,500 vehicles each day, and up to 450,000 annually. Since 1994, Plant Spartanburg has assembled nearly 7 million BMW vehicles in the U.S.

The BMW Group sales organization in the U.S. is represented through a network of 350 BMW retailers, 144 BMW motorcycle retailers, 105 MINI passenger car dealers, and 38 Rolls-Royce Motor Car dealers. The company’s activities provide and support over 120,000 jobs across the U.S. and contribute more than 43.3 billion to the U.S. economy annually.

Journalist note: Information about BMW Group and its products in the USA is available to journalists on-line at www.bmwusanews.com www.miniusanews.com and www.press.bmwna.com

The Hagerty Drivers Foundation.

The Hagerty Drivers Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit and BMW North America announced that the 1979 BMW M1 Group 4, BMW Art Car No.4 by Andy Warhol is the 37th vehicle added to the National Historic Vehicle Register. The documentation of the vehicle will be permanently archived in the U.S. Library of Congress.

As part of the U.S. tour Warhol’s automotive masterpiece will travel to Washington D.C. to be displayed on the National Mall for the Hagerty Drivers Foundation’s annual Cars at the Capital Exhibition (September 17-23) honoring its National Register designation. The DC exhibition will be located just steps from the Smithsonian museums that hold countless pieces from the very artists that were featured in the BMW Art Car series and those that inspired them. This unique automotive and art exhibition will be available free for the public to see, allowing a rare up-close opportunity to experience this significant car.

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