Latest BMW art car is a 215-mph race car headed to Le Mans

BMW’s M Hybrid V8 LMDh race car is the latest in the automaker’s series of art cars—and it won’t be confined to a gallery or museum. It will race at the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, scheduled for the weekend starting June 15.

Unveiled in Paris, the art car is the work of New York-based artist Julie Mehretu, who used her painting “Everywhen” as a starting point for the design, according to BMW.

“I thought, what would happen if this car seemed to go through the painting and becomes affected by it,” Mehretu said in a statement. “The idea was to remix, a mash-up of the painting.” Mehretu also went to the Rolex 24 at Daytona to see similar cars race, calling the experience “overwhelming” and declaring that her BMW art car won’t be truly finished until it’s had its turn at Le Mans.

Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but emigrated to the U.S. at age seven. She’s been based in New York City since 1999, and was unanimously selected by a jury of art bigwigs in 2018 to design the next BMW art car.

BMW has been commissioning famous artists to create art cars since 1975. The tradition started when French racing driver Hervé Poulain and BMW Motorsport boss Jochen Neerpasch commissioned artist Alexander Calder to paint the livery of a 3.0 CSL Poulain was slated to drive at Le Mans.

Since then, a long list of renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jeff Koons have created BMW art cars. Prior to Mehretu’s M Hybrid V8, the most recent BMW art cars were an M6 GT3 race car from Chinese artist Cao Fei and an M6 GTLM from American artist John Baldessari, shown in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

The M Hybrid V8 is BMW’s entry in the premier GTP and Hypercar classes of the respective IMSA SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship. The Le Mans race is the main event on the calendar of the World Endurance Championship.

A 4.0-liter V-8 is coupled to a spec hybrid system dictated by the rules, with a total system output of approximately 640 hp. That will propel the M Hybrid V8 to speeds of up to 215 mph, depending on the track configuration, according to BMW. Wearing the number 20, the art car will be driven by Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns, and René Rast at Le Mans. It will be BMW’s first race in the premier class at Le Mans since the 1999 running, when BMW took home its one and only overall win with the V12 LMR.