BMW.SG | BMW Singapore Owners Community The Ultimate BMW Community – Established Since 2001
The 17th BMW Art Car by Jeff Koons has been unveiled yesterday in Paris. This will be the official race car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France which will be held this June 12 and 13. It has been a BMW tradition to turn cars into canvass. This year, Jeff Koons used the BMW M3 GTS to make his colorful work.
Jeff Koons invested a lot of his time traveling back and forth to Germany so he can work with this car. Everything from engineering, design materials, and application options have been studied in depth to ensure that the art car will perform its best on the endurance race this month.
Koons used 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) models to create hundreds of lines with vivid color for the BMW M3 GTS. The main concept was to translate power into aesthetics. The design was then translated into 2D upon printing and had to be manually applied to the car and the necessary spare parts — this was a long and tedious process indeed. To represent supersonic acceleration, two graphic rings were put on the rear of the car as well.
With the help of BMW engineers and Schmid Designers, the art was done near Munich. The challenge of keeping the car lightweight despite the design was necessary so that it will not interfere with its racing bailities.
Koons was also under time pressure. From the time it was announced that he will be making the car back in February 2010, he only has two months until the Paris launch. Please see the videos for a good look of how the project turned out:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vOQoldXFHE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdhZIRd0EfE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsOo7u4WHYg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG83ETbo0xE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-IZmktrhpY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBxLvyf6Sos&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI6NZHx7J9c&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
