Retromobile excels at thematic exhibitions that showcase exciting specimens from collectors and museums, honouring a brand, a person, a historic event, a country, or an era. Thematic exhibitions add that special flair that turns second-hand trade shows into classic car events, but Retromobile plays in a different league altogether.
The organisers enjoyed great success in committing partner museums to showcase the mechanical treasures they preserve. This, in turn, allows museums to bring their exhibits closer to new audiences, also making the show more diverse. From military history to the golden age of rail, from prestigious automobiles to the legendary Group B rally era, Retromobile offered a comprehensive package.
BMW Art Car and Retromobile shared their birthday in Paris
The 50th Retromobile’s primary theme is BMW’s iconic Art Car series. The celebrations are mutual, as both Retromobile and the Art Car series will blow 50 candles this year.
For this 50th anniversary, BMW launched the BMW Art Car World Tour to exhibit the cars at high-end events around the globe. The BMW Art Car World Tour is a historic exhibition program organised across five continents that celebrates 50 years of the brand’s cultural and artistic commitment worldwide. After the stops in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai, Stockholm, The Hague, and Belgium, the show now arrived in Paris.
The mastermind behind the Art Car series was Hervé Poulain, a famous art dealer (spearheading Retromobile’s official auctioneer Artcurial for many years) who commissioned famous artists to design liveries for him. For his entries at Le Mans, he brought together the most iconic artists of his era to outfit his BMW race cars in style. The early art cars wore liveries decorated by famous artists, like Andy Warhol (later, the project evolved under BMW management).
Later on, BMW continued the art car projects on its own, and many of these vehicles were developed as l’art pour l’art exhibits with no intention of racing them. Since then, BMW has kept some of these cars at its Munich headquarters, and the first four art cars (those procured by Monsieur Poulain) and the E91 coupé painted by Jeff Koons are part of BMW World’s permanent exhibition when they are not on tour.
We got to see some of these cars at Pinakotheke during IAA Munich, later in Luxembourg and last year at the Zoute Grand Prix. And we have to say, we’ve never seen the same lineup so far: each exhibition has managed to enlist one or two new specimens. At Retromobile, the organisers brought together the seven 7 BMW Art Cars that raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, lined up in an elegant white stage on the first floor of Hall 7.
The centrepiece of the lineup is the very first art car, a personal favourite designed by Alexander Calder. He was most noted for his abstract mobiles, hailed by critics as the most innovative American sculptures of the 20th century. This was the very first race car driven by Monsieur Poulain and has been part of every Art Car exhibition we have attended.
The BMW 3.0 CSL, with which Alexander Calder laid the foundation for the Art Car Collection in 1975, was also one of his final works of art before his death. As with his sculptures, he used intense colours and gracefully sweeping surfaces for this car, generously distributed over the wings, bonnet and roof. Poulain’s car did not finish the race, but still entered posterity by launching the Art Car series.
The car on the left end is the second Art Car, a white 1976 BMW 3.0 CSL with a livery designed by Frank Stella. The American artist created a black-and-white design inspired by an oversized graph paper background. Cut-out lines across the bodywork intensify the car’s geometric look, accentuating the technical prowess of the 750-horsepower 3.0 CSL biturbo coupe.
The next car on the right is the 1977 BMW 320i, painted by Roy Lichtenstein. He is considered one of the founders of American pop art in the ‘60s.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Art Car was the third Art Car, which premiered at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It was entered in Le Mans in June 1977, driven by Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot and finished ninth overall and second in its class. And by class, I did not mean art cars only : ) but the entire IMSA GT.
Our personal favourite is still the M1, decorated by none less than Pop Art icon Andy Warhol. According to historians, the design of this livery proved to be a really bumpy ride. Following a first design featuring pink floral wallpaper, and then a change of car to the brand-new M1, Warhol came up with paint splashes and drips without contours, technically impossible to reproduce. To solve this conundrum, Warhol himself agreed to come to Munich to personally paint his design on the car body. For several days, he painted the M1 freehand with brushes. The result was sensational, with its dripping pools of colour announcing the advent of Bad Painting. Warhol’s Art Car livery may seem random, but it looks like a completely different car from each corner.
The only time this rolling work of art raced was in the 24-hour race at the 1979 Le Mans. The Warhol-liveried car was driven by Manfred Winkelhock, Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot. It finished sixth overall and second in its class. This proved to be the last collaboration between Poulain and BMW, as the Bavarians pulled out of Le Mans in the absence of a suitable car.
We had to wait until 1999 to see the fifth BMW Art Car entering Le Mans. This was the first race car from the top shelf, with a realistic chance of winning. They recruited American artist Jenny Holzer, who went quite minimalistic. The livery consists of six sentences, printed in blue BMW typical fonts on various parts of the white V12 LMR prototype. We can’t help noticing the bland white colour and the Bavarian’s standard fonts. We certainly did not get the impression that Holzer did a lot of overtime on this. The words of wisdom coming straight from a BS generator did strangely help: the car catapulted Joachim Winkelhock, Pierluigi Martini and Yannick Dalmas to the top of the podium, and then, straight to winning the race.
In the meantime, BMW also continued the Art Car series off the race track, with an entire series of art cars without Mr Poulain, working with notable artists to create rolling sculptures. You can catch up with several of them in our reports from Zoute and Luxembourg.
The next car in the line-up is Jeff Koons’ 2010 BMW M3 GT2, raced by Andy Priaulx, Dirk Müller and Dirk Werner. Mr Koons is an American artist recognised for his work dealing with popular culture and everyday objects. He is also credited with two world-record auction sales, the highest selling for USD 91.1 million (!!!) in 2019. His marriage and artwork with Hungarian porn star Cicciolina also polished his fame (and not just that: ) ). We give you a fair warning now, Koon’s work from this era is not safe for work…
The last car on the right is also the latest Art Car. BMW’s 20th official Art Car gave the Bavarians a stylish entry into the World Endurance Championship.
The BMW M Hybrid V8 is the Bavarian brand’s entry in the hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship. The sports prototype racing car was designed by BMW’s M division and built at Dallara, and debuted at the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona.
The pattern was designed by Ethiopian American contemporary visual artist Julie Mehretu. For the 20th BMW Art Car, she transformed her painting “Everywhen” into a three-dimensional gallery. The Ethiopian artist was picked in 2018 following a meeting at Art Basel with Hervé Poulain and twelve curators. She transposed the colours and shapes from one of her existing large-format paintings, enhanced by playful colours. The livery transformed the BMW into a multicoloured ball shooting down the Mulsanne Straight. Le Mans Art Cars have a long history with BMW, and this car had some really big shoes to fill, though the results are still keeping us waiting.
Retromobile 2026 summoned Bugattis in all shapes and sizes.
If you thought that a tank seems a bit excessive at a car museum, wait until you see the next one: the Cité du Train presented the Bugatti Presidential Railcar. This motorised train is powered by four eight-cylinder engines derived from Bugatti Royales, developing nearly 800 horsepower. It embodies Ettore Bugatti’s ambition to transpose automotive performance into the railway world.
The technology derived from the Type 41 Royale proved to be a commercial and financial failure. Nevertheless, the term’ failure’ was missing from Ettore Bugatti’s vocabulary, so he decided to make use of the technology already on his shelves. And if the Royale appeared over-engineered, he found a use case for its monumental engine.
In just nine months, Bugatti designed and built the plans for a new generation of high-speed trains and adapted the engine. These streamlined railcars, 23 meters long and equipped with four 200-horsepower engines, could reach 140 km/h. A speed record of 194 km/h was even achieved.
From the spring of 1933, the first units were delivered to the French national railway company. On July 30, 1933, President Albert Lebrun took a Bugatti railcar to attend the inauguration of the Cherbourg maritime station, and in 3 just hours and 15 minutes, he travelled the whole 372 km distance.
The Railcar was used by the presidents of the French Republic from 1933 and now resides in Mulhouse at their transport museum. This is the only surviving specimen of the 88 Bugatti railcars built. It is now part of the fleet of nine presidential railcars exhibited at the Cité du Train in Mulhouse.
The stage with the Railcar was complemented by the National Automobile Museum of Mulhouse, one of the world’s best car museums (also in our books). Based on the former Schlumpf Collection, the Cité houses a unique collection of over 400 exceptional cars, including the largest Bugatti collection ever assembled. And you can do this from the cars they brought along. In a segment dedicated to the genius of Ettore Bugatti, nine extraordinary Bugatti models were displayed around the railcar, all coming from Mulhouse.
The black Type 64 was an Atlantic-style coupe produced in 1939 with butterfly doors. Three cars were planned, but only one body was finished before Jean Bugatti’s death in 1939.
The blue open-wheel race car is a 1956 Bugatti Type 251, which represents the culmination of Ettore’s genius in motorsport. Sadly, it came after the death of both Ettore and Jean, and it never saw the circuits. The single-seater prototype was designed to compete in Formula 1 and introduced a rear-mounted transverse engine architecture years ahead of its time.
The Bugatti Type 73 of 1947 reflects Ettore Bugatti’s quest for innovation in design and performance. Created in the context of post-war Europe’s reconstruction, this sports sedan stands out for its fluid, refined shapes that would influence the design of many sports cars of the 1950s. The Type 73C was to be a comeback for Bugatti, but the death of Ettore Bugatti in August doomed the project along with the Company. An engine-less Type 73 was shown at the 1947 Paris Motor Show two months later. After the fall, some of the chassis were completed.
The red and blue duo are two Bugatti Type 101 specimens. The 101 was a new model developed in 1951. To restart production after World War II, the Type 101 was developed from the pre-war Type 57. The genius of Ettore Bugatti and his son, Jean, was dearly felt. In the ned, only seven chassis were built, each bodied by coachbuilders (Gangloff, Guilloré, Antem and Ghia). The two coupés exhibited were the ones coachbuilt at Gangloff.
Feeling old already? Youngtimers commemorated models celebrating their 25th birthday.
French website Youngtimers brought together half a dozen specimens that celebrate their 25th anniversaries. The selection of cars represents all shapes and sizes, from a Citroën Saxo to a Jaguar XK8.
And we must say, it felt quite old to realise that in some countries, these cars are now legally acknowledged as oldtimers.
Here we take a rhetorical break to continue with more thematic exhibitions, such as those honouring Steve McQueen or the golden age of Rallye racing.
