BMW's Art Cars

Where it all began: In 1975, French race driver Hervé Poulain came up with the idea to let his friend, US artist Alexander Calder, paint one of his cars. In cooperation with BMW's motorsport director of the time, Jochen Neerpasch, the first "BMW Art Car" was born - and was then blooded at Le Mans. A racer and an auctioneer, Poulain always had close ties to automobiles and artworks alike.

The next Art Car came the following year: Frank Stella's quadratic, black and white livery is almost reminiscent of graph paper. Strong lines criss-cross the car and add to the geometric optical effect. "My design is like a blueprint, superimposed onto the bodywork," Stella said of his special edition BMW 3.0 CSL.

"I spent a long time thinking about it and then poured in everything that I could. With the painted lines I wanted to portray the road, which shows the car the way to go. The design also shows the countryside through which the car's driving," said US pop artist Roy Lichtenstein of his 1977 conception.

The paint job chosen by Andy Warhol for this 1979 BMW M1 was conceived as "rainbow-colored planes in the style of an abstract expressionist." Seeking speed to match BMW's new sports car of the era, Warhol wanted to finish the job in five minutes flat, quicker than a Le Mans lap in the M1. But the film team begged him to take more time. He signed off on the model after exactly 28 minutes.

Two firsts graced the 1982 project: a European artist, Vienna professor Ernst Fuchs, put his special touch on the first production-line BMW to receive the Art Car treatment, the 635CSi. He dubbed it "Fire fox on a hare hunt," and said: "A hare can be seen, at night, jumping straight over a burning car on the Autobahn - primeval fears and the bold dream of overcoming a dimension we live in."

The sixth Art Car (a 1986 6-series), by Robert Rauschenberg, was the first to use photographic depictions. An Ingres painting is on the right side, while a Bronzino piece adorns the other doors. Images of the Florida Everglades' swampland cover the roof and hood; Rauschenberger also used ornamental plates on the hubcaps to create a more artistic take on getting some flashy new rims.

Australian Michael Jagamara Nelson took a week in 1989 to turn a black BMW into Papuna art. This aboriginal art form usually involves sand-painting on canvas, a technique Nelson learned from his grandfather. BMW's M3 had become an effective touring car contender of the era - Australian Tony Longhurst won the now-defunct AMSCAR championship in 1987 in one.

Ken Done was another Aussie let loose with a pot of paint and a Bavarian chariot. His bright colors and powerful lines were designed to symbolize modern Australia's sunny beaches and semitropical landscapes. Abstract portrayals of parrots and parrotfish adorn the car: "Both are beautiful and also move at fantastic speed," said Done.

Japan's Matazo Kayama chose "Snow, Moon and Cherry Blossoms" as his theme for this 1990 design of a 535i. Using airbrush technology, he sprayed blue shades over parts of the silver surfaces for greater contrasts. Then Kayama worked with Japanese techniques, cutting small pieces of silver, gold and aluminium foil to attach to the body.

Spaniard César Manrique wasn't just an architect, graphic designer, sculptor and landscaper. Above all else, he was an environmentalist. He wanted to create an Art Car embodying the harmony between nature and technology. "Therefore my idea was to decorate the car in such a way that it gave the impression of gliding through the air without any resistance," Manrique said of his fluid livery.

After three years' development, the Bavarians brought their new cult cabriolet, the Z1, onto the market in 1990. The roadster, with electric doors that slide down to let people step in, was an exclusive model. Only 8,000 were ever built. One of them is entirely unique - this 1991 Art Car from A.R. Penck, bedecked with symbols, images and his trademark stick figures.

On the 12th attempt in 1991, an Art Car was signed by a female hand. South Africa's Esther Mahlangu used Ndebele house painting techniques from her tribe, which employs bright colors and clearly-defined ornamentation. "Ndebele art is naturally grandiose in form and only needed the concept of motion added," Mahlangu said, saying her design was a bid to "marry tradition to the essence of BMW."

Italian-born artist Sandro Chia was given a prototype racing M3 and decided to present onlookers with mirror images representing themselves. "A car is a coveted object in our society," Chia said, adding that it is exposed to people's glares as it drives us along. "I decorated the surface of this car to represent these stares."

David Hockney really wanted to dig deep with his Art Car. US-based but British-born, he spent months working on a car of which the exterior was painted to show glimpses of what lay within. Did you spot the suction vents on the hood? Or the driver's silhouette, clutching the steering wheel, on the passenger door? We know you must have spotted the cheeky canine chappie on the back seat.

"Protect me from what I want." That was Jenny Holzer's 1999 message - a rather minimalist one as the artist eschewed all other paint and decoration, simply slopping slogans onto the Le Mans prototype V12 LMR. A lack of charisma can be fatal, she warned, also pointing out that "the unattainable is invariably attractive" - a fitting message to adorn a racecar that's not road legal.

Danish artist Olafur Eliasson went to town on this hydrogen-powered H2R racecar, replacing its outer shell altogether with this mixture of steel meshing, steel plates and numerous layers of ice. Eliasson wanted to explore the relationship between car and climate, rather like BMW did when making the hydrogen-powered high-speed concept car whose only exhaust waste product is water.

The most recent Art Car is Jeff Koons' 2010 rendition of the M3 GT2 class car currently flying the BMW flag in world endurance racing. He used motorsport images and portrayals of speed and explosions as inspiration. "These racecars are like-life, they are powerful and there is a lot of energy," Koons said. "There is a lot of power under that hood and I want to ... connect with that power."