All 20 BMW Art Cars are in one room for the first time, starting this week
Half a century of rolling art, finally in one place
We flagged this back in spring, and now it is actually happening. From 29 July, BMW is showing all 20 of its Art Cars together for the very first time, at BMW Welt in Munich, with the opening ceremony taking place today. It is the finale of a world tour that crossed more than 30 countries, and for anyone who cares about cars or art, it is worth the trip.
The scale of it
All 20 cars in one hall, together for the first time in the collection's 50-year history, is not a small thing to organise. The series began in 1975, when racing driver Herve Poulain and BMW Motorsport boss Jochen Neerpasch commissioned Alexander Calder to paint a 3.0 CSL racing car. Neerpasch has said they assumed it would be a one-off event, never imagining it would grow into the most important automotive art series in the world.
The names on the cars
The guest list is one most galleries could only dream of. The collection includes work by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Jeff Koons, David Hockney and Jenny Holzer, alongside contemporary artists such as Cao Fei and Julie Mehretu. Seeing a Warhol and a Koons in the same room is remarkable enough. Seeing them wrapped around racing cars is something else entirely.
The ones to prioritise
Two stand out for different reasons. Olafur Eliasson's BMW H2R Project, a hydrogen prototype clad in reflective mesh and a coating of frozen water, is on only its fourth public showing since 2007, so this is a genuinely rare chance to see it. At the other end of the timeline sits Julie Mehretu's 2024 BMW M Hybrid V8, the newest Art Car in the collection, closing a 50-year arc that runs from Calder's brushwork to a modern Le Mans prototype.
How to actually see it
The practical details are refreshingly simple. It runs at BMW Welt by the Olympiapark in Munich from 29 July to 31 August 2026, open every day from 9:00 to 18:00, and entry is free. There are guided tours twice daily in German and English, and an Artlas app offering context in 25 languages. For anyone in this part of Europe, it is an easy and cheap add-on to a Munich trip, and a far better use of an afternoon than most museum tickets you would pay for.
AutoNext Take
Car brands attach themselves to art constantly, and almost all of it is marketing wearing a beret. The BMW Art Cars are the rare exception that has earned the label, because these were real commissions given to genuinely major artists over five decades, not logos handed to a design agency. Getting all 20 into one room is a proper cultural event, and making it free is the right instinct. If you can get to Munich before the end of August, go. Collections like this almost never assemble in full, and there is no telling when, or whether, they will again.
