Singapore

Each car is truly one of a kind. The artworks, part of the BMW Art Car Collection, are fully functional cars painted by some of the top artists of the late 20th century, who used the unusual surfaces to let their creativity run wild.

The collection was started in 1975, when French auctioneer and racing car driver Herve Poulain commissioned his friend, sculptor Alexander Calder, to paint the BMW he was to drive at Le Mans. The enthusiastic reception inspired the German company to hire Frank Stella to paint another of its cars the next year. In 1977, it was Roy Lichtenstein, then Andy Warhol (1979) and Robert Rauschenberg (1986). There are now 15 cars in the collection, with a 16th being completed by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson.

Artistically painted cars have a long popular history, from the colourful jeepneys of the Philippines to the highly individualistic painted buses of Panama or the ox-carts of Costa Rica. The world of fine arts has also embraced the machine, often using car parts in sculpture or including cars in various works. In the 1960s, Californian sculptor John Chamberlain raided junkyards for rusting car parts to create pieces of great beauty.

Warhol produced oversized serial images of car crashes as part of his American Disaster Series. Although well known for using workers in his factory to churn out art (supposedly as a negation of traditional artistic ideas), Warhol painted his BMW Art Car from beginning to end himself - albeit in only 20 minutes.

'I have tried to give a vivid depiction of speed,' he once explained. 'If a car is really fast, all contours and colours will become blurred.'

Art consultant Matin Tran says that working with a car fitted Warhol's philosophy of turning everyday objects into art.