French art dealer and racing driver Hervé Poulain entered his own BMW 3.5 CSL in the 1975 24 hour race at Le Mans in the TS class (which was one of the touring car classes eligible that year) and drove the car himself along with fellow Frenchman Jean Guichet and the American driver Sam Posey. The racing 3.5 litre CSL produced approximately 480bhp thanks to an advanced four valve per cylinder, 24 valve cylinder head which was capable of revving as high as 9000 rpm under racing conditions. The car was also considerably lighter than most roadgoing BMW CS coupe's thanks to the extensive use of lightweight aluminium in it's construction. The huge aerodynamic wings on the car were sold with a small number of road cars (just enough to homologate them) but had to be sold packed in the boot of the car (with instructions on how to fit them) as in certain countries such as Germany they were not legal for road use.
The race did not go well for the Poulain BMW, thanks to the failure of a driveshaft which resulted in the retirement of the car in the 9th hour. The 1975 24hrs of Le Mans was also the only time this car was ever entered in a race. Immediately after that years Le Mans the car was put on display in the BMW museum. It remains in the hands of the BMW collection and is one of their star exhibits.
The reason for this cars short racing career was thanks to it's unusual paint. Poulain hit on the idea of getting famous artists to use BMWs as their canvas and with this car the BMW Art Car collection began. Poulain saw this as a way to combine his two passions in life, motor-racing and art. He persuaded Alexander Calder the American artist and sculptor to think of a design to paint onto his 3.5 CSL which the artist readily agreed to do. He had in 1973 been commissioned by Braniff airlines to design a paint scheme for an airliner (click here to see a picture of the Douglas DC8 painted in Calder's design, and here for the Boeing 727 livery he designed in 1975 to commemorate the US Bicentennial), but other than that most of his work tended to be in the field of sculpture, especially the design of large steel outdoor mobiles. Calder applied bright colours to the car in a pattern that did not follow the form of the car but instead followed it's own pattern.
The CSL Art Car turned out to be one of the last works prior to his death aged 78 in November 1976. I've included a link to his entry on Wikipedia which can be seen by clicking on his name here: Alexander Calder.
Minichamps released this model of the Calder CSL in 2003 as the first in a series of BMW Art Cars to be produced in 1:18th. The model came with it's own clear plastic display case and base which makes it a fantastic piece to display in any collection. To date (Sept 2006) BMW have commissioned 15 Art Cars since the Calder CSL in 1975, the most recent being the BMW V12 LMR painted by American artist Jenny Holzer in 1999. All 15 Art Cars are now available in 1:18th scale from a variety of model manufacturers (including several by Minichamps) and I hope to collect them all (as of Sept 2006 I have 11 of them!). A 16th Art Car has been announced by BMW to be based on their hydrogen powered H2R concept car, and artist Olafur Eliasson has been commissioned to design the latest addition to the incredible BMW Art Car collection.
As far as I'm aware the Art Car collection models are only available as BMW dealer edition models. This particular model can be ordered from the parts counter of any BMW dealer with the part number: 80.43.0 150.918
All the models come with a colourful book detailing the history of each Art Car with some information on the artist who designed them.
As I'm in the middle of a house move (as of August/September 2006) all my models are in storage hence I'm not able to accurately rate this model for this review. To do so properly I like to have the model to hand so I can inspect it properly in order to give it a fair rating. Once our house move is complete I aim to get my models out of storage ASAP and add a full rating of this model to this review.
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