BMW’s Art Car Collection has spent the past year traveling around the world. Now, the automaker has brought the entire collection together under one roof at BMW Welt, where a new four-minute video offers a tour of all 20 cars currently on display.
The exhibition brings together nearly five decades of BMW history, with vehicles ranging from 1970s touring-car racers to production coupes, hydrogen-powered concepts and modern endurance prototypes. BMW also incorporates archival footage featuring several of the artists discussing the ideas behind their creations.
BMW Art Cars Span Nearly Five Decades
The video moves quickly through the collection, but the scale of the exhibition is difficult to miss. Julie Mehretu discusses the limits of painting, while Indigenous Australian artist Michael Jagamara Nelson, also known as Kumantje Jagamara AM, explains how stories passed down by his father influenced his E30 M3.
Robert Rauschenberg appears around the 40-second mark alongside the BMW 635 CSi he transformed in 1986. He described the vehicle as a mobile museum and joked about wanting to create more of them.
David Hockney also discusses his BMW 850 CSi, explaining how he attempted to remove the car’s visual surface by depicting its internal mechanical components on the exterior.
Artists Turn BMWs Into Moving Works of Art
The collection includes work from artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, whose BMW 320i Turbo features painted lines designed to emphasize movement. Ken Done took a similar approach with his brightly colored M3, aiming to make the car appear as though it were already moving even while stationary.
Jenny Holzer’s BMW V12 LMR carries phrases including “Protect Me From What I Want.” Holzer also recalled wanting women to participate in motorsport as something more than decoration.
Other artists featured in the collection include Andy Warhol and Olafur Eliasson, helping push the Art Car project beyond traditional painted race-car liveries.
The BMW H2R Stands Out
Eliasson’s BMW H2R is among the exhibition’s most unusual creations. The hydrogen-powered prototype had its original bodywork removed and replaced with a reflective metal structure covered in layers of frozen water.
The complete installation weighs roughly two metric tons and has been publicly assembled only a handful of times.
The Exhibition Moves Backward Through BMW History
BMW’s video presents the collection in reverse chronological order. Visitors first encounter Julie Mehretu’s BMW M Hybrid V8 and John Baldessari’s BMW M6 GTLM before moving backward through the history of the Art Cars.
The tour eventually reaches the beginning of the project with Alexander Calder’s vividly painted BMW 3.0 CSL.
French racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain originally approached Calder about creating the car, with support from then-BMW Motorsport boss Jochen Neerpasch. Poulain later raced the vehicle at the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans.
What BMW initially viewed as a one-off experiment eventually developed into one of the automotive world’s longest-running cultural projects.
All 20 BMW Art Cars Are Together for the First Time
BMW says this marks the first time all 20 Art Cars have been displayed together in one location. The BMW Welt exhibition runs through August 31, 2026, with BMW Welt open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For BMW enthusiasts and art fans alike, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see the complete Art Car Collection together, tracing the project from Calder’s pioneering 3.0 CSL to BMW’s newest artistic interpretations.
