Joseph Klibansky provided an art wrap to a Porsche 991 Turbo S, among others, as well as a Ferrari 458 Italia, in which he competed in The Challenge 2015. Forty years earlier, the first painted sports cars appeared. Where did the idea of the Art Car come from?Text: Eltjo Nieuwenhuis
Online Editor:Noa VerseveldtToine Hezemans BMW 3.0 CSL, Le Mans.Frank Stella BMW 3.0 CSL, 1976.In 1975, Hervé Poulain had a nice idea, or rather he had two ideas. First, the Frenchman wanted to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the most famous long-distance race in the world. In addition, Hervé, part-time racing driver and full-time auctioneer, had figured out that cars could serve perfectly well as a canvas for artists. Pretty soon these wild plans were combined into one good idea. After all, what if Hervé himself could race at Le Mans in such an Art Car? He wanted to compete in the Touring Car class, and then there was no better choice than the BMW 3.0 CSL. Not only had this racing monster earned the nickname "Batmobile" due to its impressive appearance, it was also a fantastic race car. In 1973, Toine Hezemans won the European Touring Car Championship with the 3.0 CSL, after which the CSL became European Touring Car Champion five more times between '74 and '79. When Hervé wanted to realize his ideas, the displacement had by now been increased to 3,210 cc, and nearly 500 horses lived under the hood. This allowed him to compete at the front. Only he had to "just" convince BMW....
Until deep into the 1960s, the looks of race cars were traditionally determined by their national colors. For example, British race cars were usually British Racing Green, German race cars were "Silberpfeilen," and even today many purists think Ferraris and Alfas should be red. These national liveries dominated Formula One until 1968, until Lotus suddenly appeared on the track in the colors of sponsor Gold Leaf cigarettes. Traditionalists shamed it, but progressive brands like Porsche and BMW loved it. Their racing divisions also sought the flirtation with bold design. For example, the BMW 3.0 CSL with which Toine Hezemans became champion in 1973 was quite striking: that was, in fact, the year of the birth of the red-violet-blue BMW Motorsport colors. Spurred on by the huge impact these so-called M colors had, BMW felt like diving even deeper into art and design. So Hervé got his art project as well as a top car for Le Mans. He approached Alexander Calder, the American sculptor and painter famous mainly for his mobiles, moving art in other words. Could it be more appropriate? Calder was given a scale model of the BMW and, to Hervé's surprise, he brought back the finished design just a few hours later. This model, along with a bill saying "nothing more to change," went to BMW, where the design was transferred to the final race car.
After first being exhibited in Munich (home of the Bayerische Motor Werke) and the Louvre, the car went to Le Mans for its only race. After an impressive start, the Art Car unfortunately dropped out with a broken gearbox. After this, the car went straight to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Calder attended the race and expressed a desire to create a second, identical, BMW 3.0 CSL based on his original design. He thought the car looked as well as sounded fantastic and wanted one for himself. However, Calder died in 1976, even before he could realize the second Art Car. In 2021, BMW decided to build this second car after all. So this was not a reproduction, but a second original, 45 years later.Alexander Calder BMW 3.0 CSL, 1975.
It is not an unfair question that the BMW was the very first Art Car. In 1970, the legendary Porsche 917 took its first over-all victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It even became a double victory, with the "Psychedelic" or "Hippie" Porsche 917 in second place. A year later, Gijs van Lennep and Helmut Marko, indeed Max Verstappen's boss, also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Porsche 917. The most striking Porsche 917 in that race, however, was the "Pink Pig," a pink Porsche with butcher's diagram as its livery. This artsy Hippie Porsche and Pink Pig were conceived by Anatole Lapine, Porsche's chief designer at the time. But were these just creative designs or were they art? This is a question that has often been asked in the slipstream of pop art and Warhol. And without passing judgment on this, we can say anyway that in 1975 Alexander Calder was the first famous artist to design a livery for a race car. In 1976 Frank Stella got the honor of designing the successor, then in 1977 Roy Lichtenstein got his chance. The fourth Art Car was hand-painted in 1979 by the then rock star of art....
While the first three Art Cars were still designed on scale models, Andy Warhol obviously did everything differently. The pop art legend had a BMW M1 Procar set up in a studio, immediately started painting and walked out satisfied after 23 minutes. He wanted the colors to blend together as they do at high speed, and he was satisfied. His finishing touch was literal. For as Warhol often did in paintings, he swept over the car with his fingers. It was his way of adding a little imperfection to his art, as well as reproducing the effect of speed. Hervé Poulain was over the moon: he would participate in the 47th edition of the 24 of Le Mans in an original Warhol. And the result was a success, as Hervé and his teammates finished second in their class and sixth over-all.Porsche 917 Pink Pig, Le Mans, 1971.Hippie Porsche 917 L, Le Mans 1970.Want to read more about the mobile art cars? Order the new MASTERS MAGAZINE now!
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