BMW M1 Art Car by Andy Warhol (1979)

A can of Campbell’s soup, it’s not. But Andy Warhol still considered the BMW “art car” he designed to be a masterpiece. “I adore the car. It’s much better than a work of art,” Warhol said in 1979 when he hand-painted a BMW M1 in bold strokes of red, green, yellow and blue blurred into each other to portray speed. The BMW art car project, a continuing effort which commissions artists to use BMW cars as their canvas has produced 16 art cars since the first car designed in 1975 by American artist Alexander Calder. 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. 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.