Carpooling H. Poulain: “BMW will return to Le Mans one day, and with an Art Car”

“Be careful, I have lots of anecdotes, you will have a hard time sorting through them. » Master Hervé Poulain whets the appetite from the start of the Carpooling which is dedicated to him, to read in issue 2253 of AUTOhebdo, on sale at newsstands and in digital version. 

The most car-loving auctioneer ever took us to one of the cars for sale at the Artcurial sale on February 7 at the Rétromobile show in Paris: an immaculate white BMW M1. “I find it incredible, it was ahead of its time and yet it was an incredible economic flop”, He explains.

Maître Hervé Poulain introduced art into motorsport with the concept of the BMW Art Car 24 Hours of Le Mans. Several big names in modern art took part in the exercise, such as Andy Warhol in 1979, not without difficulty...

“He sent me a first provocation: the model covered with wallpaper with little lilac flowers. And so that I understand clearly that it was wallpaper, he sent me a roll of it. He had painted the windshield, the windows, he recalls.

I send the model at 1/5, as usual and there, second provocation: he makes a camouflaged car. BMW, so proud of its M1, obviously did not accept. And unlike many artists who are only modest about their reputation, the great Warhol said to me: "Since that's it, I'm coming to Munich to paint the car directly." 

I tell myself that he's going to make me some cans of soup and then he makes us a car dripping with paint by giving violent brush strokes. He was ahead of his time and did to us what I called “the rogue”. He had abandoned his habits to make this car which was unlike anything, more difficult for the public to appreciate, but which turned out to be excessively effective. »

Andy Warhol's whimsical behavior is just one anecdote among the many stories told by the former gentleman-driver in Sarthe in AUTOhebdo. Moreover, contemporary art could return to the circuits very soon according to Maître Hervé Poulain.

“BMW will return to Le Mans one day, and with an Art Car. The name of the artist has already been decided. It's going to be sublime. But I want to say that with BMW I had an elite partner. The deal was: “I’ll bring you the artist and you agree to lend the cars we ask for for exhibitions.” In the end, they are almost never in Munich. »