This Is the Crazy Art Car Wrap the BMW M Hybrid V8 Will Wear During the 2024 Le Mans Race

Ever since this  3.0 CSL stepped into the spotlight BMW has been busy tapping various world artists for crazy projects centered around its cars. It's an endeavor that doesn't happen every year, but when it does, the results are most of the time spectacular, to say the least, and definitely worth remembering.

To date there have been no less than 19 BMW Art Cars unleashed into the world, handled by some of the world's most impressive artists. The list of names includes giants like Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and, most recently, John Baldessari. And the cars these guys and gals have been asked to make prettier are not the everyday BMW vehicles, but potent nameplates like the M1, Z1, or M6 GTLM, among others.

For this year's Le Mans race, BMW is planning a return to be remembered, its first official outing with an M-handled beast on the famous pieces of French asphalt since the famous V12 LMR, a model that in 1999 managed to snatch the win during the prestigious race.

The car BMW is fielding this year is, as you probably know, the mighty M Hybrid V8, a model that's already been seen making the rounds on the circuits of the North American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. In France, the model will compete in the Hypercars category, and its specification sheet more than makes it clear that it is perfectly suitable to do so.

The hybrid monster uses a 4.0-liter V8 engine to get by, backed by an electric motor. The two deliver a combined and very respectable 640 horsepower, allowing it to accelerate to a top speed of up to 214 mph (345 kph).

Given all of the above Le Mans debut, it's kind of fitting that BMW decided to release its 20th Art Car with the M Hybrid V8 as a centerpiece, right when the carmaker is celebrating the 49th anniversary of the first one debuting during the same event.

The artist chosen to have her way with the racer is Ethiopian American Julie Mehretu. She made a name for herself by bringing into this world multi-layered landscape paintings, abstracted and at very large scales.

For the BMW Art Car project the artist created something that is described as her first transformation of a bi-dimensional image into a three-dimensional one. That bi-dimensional image would be the Everywhen artwork, currently on display at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and soon to be moved to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

The three-dimensional artwork I'm talking about can be seen on the body of the Le Mans racer. It is a replica of the ink and acrylic on canvas painting (that in its original form is a massive square with a side of almost ten feet / three meters), only made to wrap around the convoluted shape of the V8.

To apply the Everywhen on the Hybrid the artist used 3D mapping and digitally altered photographs of the painting, over which several layers of dot grids, neon colors, and black markings were placed.

The first public outing of the race car wearing this special wrap (yes, it's a wrap, not a paint job, as to be allowed to race this way) took place on May 21 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Ahead of the Le Mans race, which is scheduled to take place on June 15, the vehicle will be on display at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este in Italy.

The M Hybrid V8 will then take to Le Mans, controlled by three BMW drivers taking turns behind the wheel: Sheldon van der Linde (South Africa), Robin Frijns (The Netherlands), and René Rast (Germany).

The racer wears number 20, just like its position on the roster of BMW's Art Cars lineup, and it will be competing against the likes of the Lamborghini SC63, the Porsche 963, and the Ferrari 499P. Another M Hybrid V8, number 15, will be raced with no special art wrap by another BMW team comprising Dries Vanthoor (Belgium), Raffaele Marchielo (Switzerland), and Marco Wittmann (Germany).

It's unclear what will happen to this special V8 once it's done competing. Normally, the other Art Cars are more or less constant displays in the BMW Museum in Munich, but they also go on tour from time to time to allow people in other locations to feast their eyes on these incredible and unique works of art.