Nobody does Art Cars quite like BMW. Others try, from time to time, sure. But over the past 40 years, the Bavarian automaker has collaborated with world-renowned artists to create no fewer than 17 unique art cars, each a work of art in its own right.

One of the things we love the most about BMWs art cars is that, as creative as they are, they’re not just for show. Many of them have been raced, and raced hard – from the first 3.0 CSL painted by Alexander Calder (pictured above) to the latest M3 GT2 by Jeff Koons.

Unfortunately, while the cars have gone on display in galleries and museums around the world, seeing all 17 in one place is a rarity. So to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the art car program, BMW has put the entire collection online. Each car gets its own exhibit and film highlighting its creation, all laid out in a virtual museum.

There’s also a forty-minute video on the history of the program, a short synopsis of which we’ve got in the clip after the jump along with the full press release, along with a smattering of official images in the first gallery and our own photos in the second gallery from when four of the collection’s finest came to LA. Click on to check it out, and follow the link to BMW’s online art car exhibition.

Continue reading BMW opens Art Car collection to the public with virtual gallery [w/video]

BMW opens Art Car collection to the public with virtual gallery [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Polyphony’s Gran Turismo games tread the line between fantasy and reality with the balance of a trapeze artist. Not only are the games themselves a close approximation of reality, but once in a while, reality jumps out of the digital world and into the tangible.

A couple of years ago the game’s creators worked with the French automaker to give birth to the GTbyCitroën – a supercar designed specifically for the game. But then they made it into a concept car and put it on display. And while it never came to be, they even considered a limited production run.

The latest collaboration brought the recently-crowned world champion Red Bull Racing team on board for the X1 prototype. Again, an extreme high-performance vehicle designed specifically for the game – this time a vision of what an F1 car could be if not for all the pesky regulations. Initial reports that the car is powered by a turbine engine are now being corrected to an F1-derived, direct-injection, twin-turbo V6. Fortunately, the 1483-horsepower output remains.

Actually building the X1 into a functioning track car would be a little pointless and undoubtedly extremely expensive, but they have made a full-size mock-up that will be unveiled during the game’s launch party, scheduled (don’t hold your breath) for Madrid in a few weeks’ time. Here’s hoping GT5 can follow that same fantasy-to-reality trajectory and land in our hands on (the revised and revised again) schedule.

[Source: GTPlanet]

From Virtual to Reality: GT5‘s Red Bull X1 prototype jumps out of the screen originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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