BMW's 100th-anniversary celebration continues as the company presents a special exhibit at one of the nation's best-known car museums. BMW of North America and the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles are teaming up for "BMW: 100 Years of Performance," from September 1 through October 14, 2016.
Visitors to The Peterson will see an impressive display of some of the race cars that made BMW a force in motorsports from the 1970s on. These will include a 1970 Alpina 2002ti race car, a 1977 IMSA 320i Turbo race car driven by David Hobbs, a 1979 BMW M1 Procar, the 2000 BMW-Williams.F1 FW22 Formula 1 car driven by Ralf Schumacher. In addition the exhibit will feature a BMW 507 roadster.
But wait, there’s more. “BMW: 100 Years of Performance” will have one of the company’s most popular art cars—the 2010 BMW M2 GT2 with a paint scheme designed by Jeff Koons. For the period of the special exhibit the Koons art car will increase by one the exhibit of art cars that BMW has been presenting at The Peterson throughout 2016. Visitors have been able to see the first art car, a BMW 3.0 CSL designed by Alexander Calder, as well as the BMW 850 CSi painted by David Hockney in 1995 and the BMW 535 decorated by Matazo Kayama in 1990.
“BMW has built its reputation for performance on the track and on the streets with cars like those we’ll be displaying at The Petersen,” said Trudy Hardy, Vice President of Marketing at BMW of North America. “More importantly though, this collection of iconic BMWs demonstrates not only where we’ve been, but what the BMW brand stands for—and will continue to stand for—as we move into the next 100 years.”
BMW CCA members who attended the 47th annual BMW CCA Oktoberfest and the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion over the last two weeks in Monterey, California, already received an expanded preview of the display that is opening at The Peterson. BMW brought an amazing assortment of historic and modern race and street cars to those events and exhibited them at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the Legends of the Autobahn, and Oktoberfest 2016.
In announcing the “BMW: 100 Years of Performance” exhibit, BMW said that an “iconic” BMW 507 would be present. Since only 251 of the beautiful roadsters were ever built, every one of them could be considered iconic, but there is one that must be considered special, for a couple of reasons. First it has recently been completely restored by BMW Classic in Munich and it is absolutely gorgeous. Second, it is the very 507 once owned and driven by Elvis Presley while he served in the U.S. Army in Germany. BMW’s press release did not specify that the 507 at The Peterson would be Elvis’ 507, but since the car was already in California last week, we would be surprised if it isn’t the one. Seeing that restoration in person is worth the price of admission, in our opinion.
“The Petersen is honored to be able to play host to these incredible cars and to have such a fantastic partner in BMW,” said Adam Langsbard, chief marketing officer for the Petersen Automotive Museum. This group of cars is rarely seen outside of specific events or BMW’s own collection and as such, this very limited exhibition at the Petersen is not to be missed whether you’re a fan of BMW or race cars in general. “We’re proud to be able to work with such a dedicated company and group of people.”
If you’re in LA in the next six weeks and haven’t yet attended a BMW 100 Years event, this would be a good one. Of course, if you’re a fan of automotive history, any reason to visit The Peterson is a good reason, but this BMW exhibit makes an even better reason.—Scott Blazey
