The BMW M Hybrid V8 will contest its first 24 Hours of Le Mans with a special livery as BMW's twentieth 'art car'. The artist Julie Mehretu will be in charge of designing the image of the BMW LMDh for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2024.
Le Mans is the queen event of the WEC and, almost by extension, of resistance worldwide. Riders, teams, and brands dream of competing and succeeding in La Sarthe, which makes this event something special. One of the many peculiarities of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the tradition of bringing to life vehicles with completely different liveries than the usual ones, which is always an additional attraction for fans.
In some cases, these color changes are the fault of the sponsors, in others to celebrate events or wink at the past. However, there is a tradition above these circumstances and that is the creation of the so-called 'art car'. Prototypes and GT vehicles become the canvas to give life to artistic liveries that go down in history. BMW is one of the brands that has opted for this particularity the most when it competed in Le Mans.
For this reason, BMW M Motorsport has announced that the debut of the BMW M Hybrid V8 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2024 will be in an 'art car' livery. To this end, the Munich brand and the Ethiopian artist Julie Mehretu have joined forces after passing a sort of 'casting' in which museum directors and experts have opted for this New York-based artist. In fact, the announcement of this collaboration between BMW and Mehretu has taken place at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in the city.
For the occasion, the BMW M Hybrid V8 has lost all its clothing and has been presented with an exposed carbon livery, without any color or decoration. This a nod to what 'art cars' mean, since somehow the LMDh prototype of the Munich firm is shown naked before receiving a new skin in the form of an artistic work. We will have to wait to know the final result of this collaboration.
BMW's 20th art car
The BMW M Hybrid V8 with the decoration of Mehretu will be the twentieth 'art car' of the German firm. The firm thus gives continuity to a tradition that began to take shape with the BMW 3.0 CSL that competed in the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans with a livery designed by the American artist Alexander Calder. The last time BMW competed in the premier class at Le Mans with an art car was in 1999 with the BMW V12 LMR designed by Jenny Holzer.
Of course, there are more recent examples of the legacy of BMW in the field of 'art car'. Without going any further, in the 2016 24 Hours of Daytona, a BMW M6 GT3 with a decoration designed by John Baldesarri was put into the fray. Other GT models with 'art car' liveries have also been seen at the GT World Cup in Macau or at the 24 Hours of Le Mans itself. Artists like Cao Fei, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, and Frank Stella have collaborated with BMW.
From the United States to Europe
The choice of Julie Mehretu to design this BMW M Hybrid V8 'art car' draws a curious parallel, since the artist based in the United States will give life to a prototype that will fight for glory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in Europe. The same path that BMW's own LMDh project has followed, competing first in IMSA to make the leap to the WEC in 2024 at the hands of Team WRT.
In addition, the announcement of this BMW 'art car' could
not come at a better time, since the BMW M Hybrid V8 has achieved its first
great success at IMSA. Last weekend the #25 BMW of Connor de Phillippi and Nick
Yelloly took victory at the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen due to the disqualification
of the #6 Porsche for an illegal block slip.
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