Four of BMW's famous Art Cars will be on display at Auckland Museum this July, including Andy Warhol's 1979 BMW M1, Roy Litchenstein's 1977 BMW 320i and Frank Stella's 1976 BMW CSL 3.0 (pictured). Since Alexander Calder gave driver Herve Poulain's BMW 3.0 CSL a new paint job in 1975 for the 24 Hour Le Mans race, both BMW and the public have had a love affair with 'art cars', a vehicle modified as an act of personal expression.Four of BMW's famous Art Cars will be on display at Auckland Museum this July, including Andy Warhol's 1979 BMW M1, Roy Litchenstein's 1977 BMW 320i and Frank Stella's 1976 BMW CSL 3.0 (pictured). Since Alexander Calder gave driver Herve Poulain's BMW 3.0 CSL a new paint job in 1975 for the 24 Hour Le Mans race, both BMW and the public have had a love affair with 'art cars', a vehicle modified as an act of personal expression.As a result of the car's popularity, BMW commissioned the experiment to continue, asking some of the art world's most celebrated minds to design artwork for their newer models competing in Le Mans.

With Warhol, Litchenstein and Stella involved, BMW commissioned fifteen more cars to be decorated with more and more artists contributing to collection; Ernst Fuchs, Robert Rauschenberg, Jenny Holzer and Sandro Chia used the cars as a blank canvas, treating the works as if integral to their own series, while the fascination of the public ever increased.

Today, the fascination with the machines is shared by both patrons of the art world and car enthusiasts alike; the concept bore many imitators, either custom building a body themselves or creating stunning visual pieces - many of which showcased at the North American Burning Man festival.

The collection of BMW's original four art cars have been showcased around such prominent museums as the Guggenheim in New York, the Palazzo Grassi in Italy and France's Centre Pompidou and the Louvre.

When: 16 July - 12 August, 2007
Where: Event Centre, Auckland Museum
Free with entry donation