The BMW Art Car Project was introduced by the French racecar driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain, who wanted to invite an artist to create a canvas on an automobile. In 1975, Poulain commissioned American artist and friend Alexander Calder to paint the first BMW Art Car. This first example would be a BMW 3.0 CSL which Poulain himself would race in the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. Since Calder's work of art, many other renowned artists throughout the world have created BMW Art Cars, including David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. To date, a total of 20 BMW Art Cars, based on both racing and regular production vehicles, have been created. Frank Stella also made one unofficial art car at the behest of race car driver Peter Gregg. The most recent artist to the join BMW Art Car program is Cao Fei in 2017 with her M6. Artists for the BMW Art Car Project are chosen by a panel of international judges. According to Thomas Girst, who has been in charge of the BMW Art Cars project since 2004, the purpose of the project has changed over time: "In the beginning the cars were raced. There wasn't much of a public relations effort around them... Since then, some of the Art Cars have been used in advertisements to show that BMW is a player in the arts. With the Eliason work, part of what we are doing is raising awareness of alternative and renewable energy sources." BMW Art Cars * The 2009 project by Robin Rhode did not create an art car, but rather used a BMW Z4 driven over a giant canvas to create a work by applying paint with the car's tires. Miniatures Since 2003, BMW has released the Art Cars (at the time, this encompassed the entire series) as 1:18 scale miniature diecast. They are sold in limited edition by BMW dealers and shops. All of them have an elegant acrylic display and a grey base, iconic package with red box and an “art car” booklet inside. The first two to be released were Alexander Calder's BMW 3.0 CSL and Jenny Holzer's BMW V12 LMR. Initially 3000 copies each were to be produced with an MSRP of $125 (now $145) each. Nowadays there are 17 miniatures, but there are 19 Bmw art cars, simply of 2 there