The 1979 BMW M1 Art Car, hand painted by Andy Warhol, has become the 37th vehicle to be added to the US’s National Historic Vehicle Register. As such, all documentation relating to the car will be permanently archived in the US Library of Congress, while the car itself will go on show in a glass case on Washington DC’s National Mall from September 17-23, 2025.
The M1 is currently on tour as part of BMW‘s celebration of 50 years of its Art Car series. It was shown alongside the most recent Art Car at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where we got a chance to look around both machines.
Warhol, the celebrated Pittsburgh-born American artist, gave the M1 Group 4 race car its elaborate pop-art makeover in 1979. “I attempted to show speed as a visual image. When the automobile is really travelling fast, all the lines and colours are transformed in a blur,” he said at the time.
It was the fourth in the line of BMW’s Art Cars, which started in 1975 thanks to French racing driver and art enthusiast Hervé Poulain. In collaboration with Jochen Neerpasch, then head of motorsport at BMW, Poulain invited his friend and artist Alexander Calder to paint a BMW 3.0 CSL, which went on to participate in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1975.
Famous artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Ólafur Elíasson and, of course, Warhol have since contributed, with the latest unveiled in May 2025 at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. Nowadays the artists are selected by an independent worldwide jury of gallerists and curators, and the artist always maintains complete creative freedom throughout the entire process.
As for the Warhol car, its creation was unusual because most artists are given a scale model of the car on which to create their art, which is then recreated on the car by BMW’s own Art Car paint expert. Warhol, however, kept painting over the windows of the buck. After several such attempts, BMW allowed him to paint directly onto the car, ensuring that the windows were masked first. It went on to be raced in the 1979 Le Mans 24 Hours, finishing sixth overall and second in its class.
In contrast, the design for the most recent Art Car, by Julie Mehretu on a 2024 BMW M Hybrid, was transferred to a vinyl wrap to keep weight and even aerodynamic disruption to a minimum.
“Many view the automobile as a form of art in motion, and the Warhol BMW M1 is arguably the most iconic example in the Art Car series,” said McKeel Hagerty, board president of the Hagerty Drivers Foundation. “We greatly appreciate BMW North America’s support and enthusiasm for sharing this historic car, and we are proud to help secure its legacy by including it in the National Register.”
The Warhol BMW will be on display in Washington DC on September 17-23, just steps from the Smithsonian museums that hold countless pieces from the very artists who have featured in the BMW Art Car series along with those who inspired them. The car will be free for the public to visit, allowing a rare opportunity to see it up close. To inspire both young artists and car enthusiasts, there will be a Family Day activation at the exhibit on Saturday, September 20 at which kids will be able to paint their very own masterpiece in the spirit of Warhol and the other Art Car artists.
For more about the Hagerty Drivers Foundation and previous cars honoured click here, and for some of the previous entries to the National Historic Vehicle Register click here.
