BMW M1 ART CAR ANDY WARHOL

The fourth BMW Art Car was created in 1977 by the Pop Art legend Andy Warhol who, unlike the previous artists, worked directly on the full-scale vehicle and painted the car himself.

For Andy Warhol to paint an automobile seems a natural. His studio was known as a factory and his greatest fame came from portraying Campbell's Soup cans.

Warhol explained the sweeping strokes of his car, "I tried to portray speed pictorially. If a car is moving really quickly, all the lines and colors are blurred."

All previous Art Car artists created their designs on 1:5 scale models, called maquettes, and had technicians reproduce their designs on the real cars. Warhol insisted on painting the real M1 himself.

He is reported to have spent all of 23 minutes painting the car. He ran his fingers through the paint to leave a personal touch.

When asked if he was pleased with the end result, he replied, "I love the car; it's better than the work of art itself."

The car raced only once, in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979, driven by Manfred Winkelhock (Germany) and the Frenchmen Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot. It placed sixth overall and second in class.

Thanks to BMW AG for all the help and great videos and thank you for reading this post.

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Manny Ortiz

Editor EMN

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• BMW
• ART
• CAR
• 1979
• M1
• ANDY
• WARHOL
• Art
• Car
• Pop
• legend
• automobile

[highart2003]

I guess you would prefer 26 inch spinning rims?

[taximetrista]

what a video!

[chiosalredr]

why is he famous?

[nanofrass]

It looks much better with the Motul,s red and white. This looks ugly. Painting such a beautiful car like this is pretty dumb.

[DrBukcake]

"it is a fast car, so you have to paint it fast" is what Andy said when asked about the job. $8,000 was a lot of money in the 70s. Especially for a 20 minute pant job..

[porkpig350]

@jackkrap In the sponsorship plastered cars ..I could not agree more..still effortless art ..I consider myself unable to opinate, simply because I do not understand and it seems so improvised..but then again maybe he had every splatter and run all predetermined and figured out..just like pollock..cheers mate

[blackXSpr]

I am a little confused why he painted a M1 then signed an E30 M3

[jackkrap]

@porkpig350 It is fully functional, and it raced at Le Mans and won second place in its class. Warhol did not ruin the car. He added an aesthetic quality to it, and freed it from the shackles of sponsorship logos that festoon normal race cars.

[firemachima]

it sucks! <3 andy though

[porkpig350]

Yes ,

If I have to declare myself illiterate, ignorant , you name it..I will..but to me art has to have some effort and creativity into it,,maybe pain,,he ruined a car rendering it into uselessness ,,and object only the ones who do not work for their money can appreciate,,same pseudosnobs that drink wine and tell you they can taste all the ingredients, but are only a generation apart from the ghetto

[miniz33]

I would have liked this car a lot more if andy could have kept lines clean and random instead it looks like he'd say "that'll do, I'm getting paid either way" and move to the next part.

[miniz33]

I can appreciate art, but I appreciate a fine machine when I see it. Unfortunately this "Work of Art" took no effort, I've heard people say it merely took an hour to paint. Which is true, shows, as the end result is far from impressive. Mechanically this car was art, true art, and the paint takes away from that.