The spectacular video above has something for anyone who likes art, cars, helicopters and spectacular scenery. But since we’re car people, we’ll primarily touch on the car in question, and more importantly, its rich history. In an unusual and clever marketing move – beginning in 1975 – BMW began hiring famous artists to design paint jobs for one of their BMW Motorsport racing cars.

Alexander Calder designed the first one, a BMW 3.5CSL. He invented the Mobile, a type of kinetic sculpture.

The third BMW Art Car, a class-winning Le Mans BMW 320, was designed in 1977 by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. It’s a personal favorite.

By 1979, the fourth BMW Art Car, a BMW M1, was designed and actually hand-painted by another pop artist, the famous Andy Warhol. And frankly, it was a Warholy mess.

The tradition of BMW Art Cars has continued on and off until 2010. There are 18 in total and they all reside in the BMW Museum, unless they are on display in art museums or being flown to the top of mountainous fjords in Norway… for promotional purposes only, I hope.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to own the Jeff Koons designed BMW Art Car as shown in the video as I would find it rather annoying to have to carry around 20-30 tubes of various colours of touch-up paint for the inevitable fjord stone chips.

What about you? Which art car would you most like to call your own? Tell us your answer down below in the comments or fire a tweet to @EndrasBMW!

Posted by Alexotics