BMW Art Car #2 - BMW 3.2 CSL Turbo 'Frank Stella'
BACKGROUND
After the success of BMW’s first Art Car, an E9 CSL painted by Alexander Calder which garnered a huge amount of publicity at the 1975 Le Mans 24 Hours, the Munich firm commissioned a second machine to run at the same event the following year.
For this second iteration of the Art Car theme, BMW turned to renowned American painter, sculptor and printmaker, Frank Stella, who was supplied with the company’s most radical racing car thus seen: a Group 5 3.2-litre E9 CSL Turbo.
BMW E9 CSL TURBO
The E9 CSL had originally been created as ahomologation special that would enable BMW to challenge Ford at domestic and European level in Group 2 Touring Cars. Having swept the Capri RS aside in its first season of competition during 1973, BMW subsequently ran a much-reduced campaign in 1974 owing to an Oil Crisis caused by war in the Middle East.
Having returned with an uprated model with which to contest the 1975 IMSA GTO Championship in North America, BMW then produced an even more extreme CSL to run in select events of the World Sportscar Championship which for 1976 embraced new Group 5 ‘Silhouette’ regulations.
While the likes of satellite firms Alpina and Schnitzer ran normally aspirated CSLs throughout 1976, BMW Motorsport developed a tricked out Turbo version that appeared at a handful of events as a challenger to the Martini-backed Porsche 935.
At the CSL Turbo’s heart was a special Type M49/4 version of the 3210cc DOHC 24 valve inline six. With twin KKK blowers in place this highly experimental unit was capable of developing an incredible 780bhp - enough to propel the new car onto a top speed of 211mph.
FRANK STELLA
Born in 1936 in Malden, Massachusetts, to first generation Italian American parents, Frank Stella began to study art at the Phillips Academy in Andover at age 14.
During his second year at Phillips, Stella came under the tutorship of the abstractionist Patrick Morgan who taught him how to paint and introduced Stella to Bauhaus colour theory and abstract expressionism.
Although Stella went on to study history at Princeton in New Jersey, he simultaneously undertook several art courses. Stella was introduced to the New York art scene by Princeton professors, the painter Stephen Greene and art historian William C. Seitz, with whom he visited exhibitions around the city.
Following graduation, Stella moved to New York where he established a studio and began to create works which emphasized the picture-as-object, a reductionist approach inspired by minimalism and abstract expressionism.
Stella's Transitional Paintings and Black Paintings became a catalyst for the late 1950s minimalist movement and, in 1959, four of his works were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art.
The following decade saw Stella move into Post Abstractionist large-scale pop art paintings, often using shaped canvases, which in 1966 developed into the elaborate Irregular Polygon series.
During the 1970s, as he began to adopt even more unusual colour schemes and shapes, Stella introduced the element of relief which he called Maximalist painting owing to its sculptural attributes.
The middle of that decade saw Stella begin to replace solid planes with squiggles, lattices, and swirls of colour as composite features began to project from his canvases in all directions. Meanwhile, Stella’s wall-mounted paintings steadily evolved into outlandish sculptures.
STELLA’S CSL
The CSL Turbo that served as the basis for Frank Stella’s Art Car was chassis 2275981 which had first appeared at the Silverstone 6 Hour race on May 5th 1976 where Ronnie Peterson and Gunnar Nilsson qualified second. Although Peterson took an early lead in the BMW Motorsport-liveried machine after the Martini Porsche 935 retired on the opening lap, the Swede ultimately dropped out during the first hour with transmission issues.
Chassis 2275981 subsequently returned to Munich where, between May and June, it was transformed with a sensational paint job inspired by the car’s engineering aura.
The black and white colour scheme comprised a graph paper-patterned overlay upon which various shapes were painted to include concentric circles and dotted lines.
Stella described his work as “a kind of blueprint applied to the entire body of the car”.
1976 LE MANS 24 HOURS
The 1976 Le Mans 24 Hours took place over the weekend of June 12th and 13th. Group 5 opposition to the CSL Turbo (which was to be driven by Brian Redman and Peter Gregg) came in the shape of factory-backed Schnitzer, Alpina and Hermetite BMWs, the Martini-backed Porsche 935 and a Kremer-developed 935.
Redman and Gregg qualifed the CSL Turbo in eighth (five places behind the works 935) but the BMW had blown both its engines in the build up to the race.
Knowing he was on borrowed time, Brian Redman turned the boost pressure right up at the start of the race and blasted past the Martini 935 to take third on the opening lap. However, the BMW was soon in the pits with an oil leak and, after a troubled run, the car was eventually withdrawn in a cloud of smoke during the fifth hour.
1976 DIJON 6 HOURS
Nine weeks after its showing at Le Mans, chassis 2275981 was wheeled out for the final World Sportscar Championship event of 1976, the Dijon 6 Hours on September 4th, the outcome of which would decide whether Porsche or BMW won that year’s title.
Ronnie Peterson (who was again partnered by Gunnar Nilsson) took pole in CSL Turbo with a lap time half a second quicker than the Martini 935 which lined up alongside.
When the flag dropped, Peterson led into the first corner, but Jacky Ickx in the Martini 935 was determined to hold on to the Swede. The lead pair immediately began to pull away from the rest of the field and, for the next 30 laps, Peterson and Ickx circulated nose to tail.
Unfortunately, on lap 34 Peterson lost all drive and Ickx went through as the turbocharged BMW headed slowly to pits. Once there, the differential locked up completely and the Art Car was retired.
Porsche ultimately won the title by 95 points to BMW’s 85.
As for chassis 2275981, it has resided in BMW’s factory collection ever since.
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: BMW - https://www.bmw.com
