Take BMW’s Art Cars Anywhere With A New AR App For Your Smartphone

BMW has partnered with Acute Art to present its famed Art Cars in augmented reality. Starting on July 21, you’ll be able to see what they would look like wherever you are.

“The BMW Art Cars are an essential part of the DNA of BMW’s 50-year-long cultural engagement,” said Pieter Nota, BMW’s head of customers, brands, and sales. “Finally, they are entering the digital realm and can be accessible everywhere and for everyone.”

One of the cars available from the outset will be the first car that started the tradition, Hervé Poulain’s 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL. Poulain, an art aficionado, worked with Jochen Neerpasch, the founder of BMW motorsport, to get an artist to design the car’s race livery for the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year.

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They turned to American artist Alexander Calder. A sculptor and car painter, he aspired to give every work his own distinctive mark, which he certainly did. Sadly, the 3.0 CSL was the last project he completed before his death, but he started a tradition that continues on to this day with the 2017 BMW M6 GT3 by Chinese artist Cao Fei.

BMW plans to add all of its art cars to the app, but to start with, it’s releasing the app with seven cars designed by: Alexander Calder (BMW 3.0 CSL, 1975), Michael Jagamara Nelson (BMW M3, 1989), Ken Done (BMW M3, 1989), Matazo Kayama (BMW 535i, 1990), Esther Mahlangu (BMW 525i, 1991), Jeff Koons (BMW M3 GT2, 2010), and John Baldessari (BMW M6 GTLM, 2016).

The app is pretty demanding, so in order to use it you’ll need a reasonably up-to-date smartphone, but it is free. Once loaded the car appears to sit in your environment, allowing you to walk around it and see it in 360 degrees through your phone screen. You can download the app by scanning the BMW-provided QR code in the gallery below.