Product Description
1/43 Dealer Edition 1977 BMW 320i E21 Turbo Gr.5 #50 24h LeMans Hervé Poulain, Marcel Mignot Diecast Car Model
Art Cars have a long tradition at BMW. For 50 years, the Munich-based company has been commissioning selected artists to design its racing and production cars. The idea for the first BMW Art Car came from the French auctioneer and racing driver Hervé Poulain. In 1975, the American artist Alexander Calder painted a BMW 3.0 CSL, which Poulain then drove in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Roy Lichtenstein’s BMW Art Car from 1977 is the third of its kind and ranks among the most famous vehicles in the BMW Art Car Collection. Based on the BMW E21, the 320i Turbo Group 5 uniquely combines Pop Art, automotive design and motorsport.
Lichtenstein did not simply decorate the racing car with a Pop Art pattern, but made the car’s movement itself the subject of the design. The long, sweeping lines on the bodywork symbolise roads and directions of travel, conveying the impression of a car racing through a landscape. These are complemented by Lichtenstein’s signature Ben-Day dots, familiar from his comic-inspired works.
A particular detail is the suns on the doors: on one side, the sun is rising; on the other, it is setting. They refer to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in which the car actually competed in 1977 with start number #50. Driven by Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot, it finished 9th overall despite technical problems. The Art Car was therefore not just a work of art, but a genuine racing car.
Lichtenstein, one of the most important figures in American Pop Art, brought motifs from comics, advertising and everyday culture into the art world. With the BMW, the racing car itself becomes a canvas – and at the same time an integral part of the artwork. The bodywork, lines and speed become elements of his visual language.
It is precisely this that gives this Art Car its special quality: the car is not merely a vessel for the artwork – the car itself becomes a work of art.
