The latest BMW art car is a 215-mile-per-hour race car heading to Le Mans
BMW's M Hybrid V8LMDh race car is the latest in the automaker's series of art cars and is not limited to galleries and museums. From 6/15, the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours race is scheduled for the weekend.
The art car unveiled in Paris is the work of New York-based artist Julie Mehretu, who, according to BMW, used her painting "Everywhen" as a starting point for the design.
"I thought what would happen if this car went through the picture and became affected by it," Meretz said in a statement. "The idea was to mash-up and remix the picture.Mehretu also went to the Rolex 24 at Daytona to watch similar car races and called the experience "overwhelming" until her BMW Art car had its turn at Le Mans,
Meretz was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but emigrated to the United States at the age of 7. She has been based in New York City since 1999 and was unanimously selected by a jury of art heavyweights in 2018 to design the next BMW art car.
BMW has commissioned famous artists to create art cars since 1975. The tradition began when French racing driver Hervé Poulin and BMW Motorsport boss Jochen Neelpach asked the artist Alexander Calder to paint the coloring of the 3.0 CSL Poulin, which he planned to drive in Le Mans. It was.
Since then, a long list of famous artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons have created BMW art cars. Mehretu's latest BMW art car before the M Hybrid V8 was the m6GT3 race car by Chinese artist Cao Fei and the M6GTLM by American artist John Baldessari, on display in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
The M Hybrid V8 is BMW's entry into the Premier GTP class and hypercar class of the imsa Sports Car Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship respectively. The Le Mans Race is the main event in the calendar of the World Endurance Championship.
The 4.0-liter V-8 is coupled to the spec hybrid system determined by the rules, and the total output of the system is about 640 horsepower. According to BMW, this will propel the m hybrid V8 to speeds of up to 215mph depending on the track configuration. Wearing Number 20, the art car is driven by Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and Rene Rust in Le Mans. It will be BMW's first race in the Premier class at Le Mans since 1999, when BMW was the only overall winner in the v12LMR.
