We’re finally getting a new BMW Art Car in 2024, but until the M Hybrid V8 debuts on May 21, you can check out a much older project by visiting the BMW Welt in Munich. The #5 Art Car penned by Vienna art professor Ernst Fuchs has touched down at the museum in Germany where it will be on display for a limited amount of time. It’s based on the gorgeous 635 CSi from the E24 era, and as you would imagine, it’s in perfect condition.

The 635 CSi was the first BMW Art Car based on a production model and the first created by a European artist. It was conceived solely as an exhibition piece from day one, receiving striking flames on a black body. Back in the day, the Austrian painter said the art project allowed him to “express a wide range of experiences, fears, desires, and invocations, as well as aesthetic, artistic freedom.

Just like the car itself, Ernst Fuchs provided a colorful description of how he got his inspiration: “A rabbit can be seen running across the motorway at night and leaping over a burning car — a primal fear and a daring dream of defeating the dimensions within which we live. It tells me which colors to choose. I read its lines, its shape and I can hear its call to speed. I see this beautiful rabbit jump through the flames of love — defeating fear itself.”

The BMW 635 CSi was never actually used as a car. Following its debut in the “Art as Illustration — Illustration as Art” exhibition in 1982, it served as a purely static exhibit at various venues. The artist titled his work of art as the “Firefox on Harehunt.”

Born in 1930, Ernst Fuchs attended the St. Anna Painting School and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The Austrian painter had 16 children. He passed away in November 2015 at the age of 85.

Source: BMW Welt / Instagram