The 2025 Munich Art Car: A new chapter in Walter Maurer's artistic automotive history
With the 2025 Munich Art Car, Walter Maurer presents another outstanding work that impressively underscores his extraordinary position at the intersection of art, automotive culture and Bavarian identity. Having significantly shaped the international art car tradition over decades, Maurer has now reached a creative peak with a new, unique Munich-based creation that attracted considerable attention even before its official presentation.
An art car with strong Munich connections
The new art car was designed on the basis of a light-coloured BMW and conceived from the outset as a tribute to Munich. Maurer is thus consciously continuing the tradition with which he has been closely associated since the early years of BMW Art Cars. At the same time, he has chosen a modern, regionally rooted approach that turns the vehicle into a rolling work of art directly linked to the city of Munich and its cultural identity.
The design focuses on motifs that characterise the cityscape and history of the Bavarian capital. Maurer works with a combination of clear graphic elements and precise hand painting, which lends the vehicle both artistic depth and visual lightness. The careful balance between flat shapes, fine lines and colour accents is reminiscent of his classic signature style, yet the work displays a new, contemporary interpretation of his style.
Artistic signature and technical precision
Maurer's working method has always combined two worlds: the technical perfection of the paint craft and free-form painting. The 2025 Munich Art Car is a particularly striking example of this. The light base tone creates a clearly defined stage on which the Munich motifs shine and unfold harmoniously along the contours of the bodywork.
Every element of the design has been deliberately placed. The transitions between paintwork and finely executed brushstrokes are designed to create a special spatial effect when combined. The result is an art object that, despite its complexity, never appears overloaded, but radiates a clear, almost elegant calm.
A vehicle with identity and attitude
Art cars have always been more than just painted vehicles – they convey messages, negotiate ideas and combine technical innovation with artistic expression. The Munich Art Car 2025 continues this tradition and expands on it at the same time: it tells the story of the city of Munich, its cultural symbols, industrial history and modern self-image. At the same time, it reflects Maurer's long-standing engagement with mobile art forms.
The vehicle is not intended to be a museum piece, but rather living art in public space. It is meant to be seen, to move, to encounter people – and thus create the very moment that makes art cars so unique: art that is not created in a studio, but unfolds its effect on the street.
Significance for the art car tradition
Walter Maurer is one of the few artists worldwide who has been actively involved in art car history for decades. Numerous internationally renowned art cars bear his signature; many of them have long been among the most prestigious mobile works of art of the modern era.
With the 2025 Munich Art Car, Maurer continues this line – not as a repetition of the familiar, but as a further development. The work shows how the design language can change over the years while still retaining the characteristic features of his art.
In the coming months, the vehicle will be presented at selected locations in Munich and beyond. Photos, insights into the creation process and further background reports will follow on this website.
The 2025 Munich Art Car is impressive proof that Walter Maurer continues to firmly assert his position as one of Europe's most influential art car artists – with a work dedicated to Munich that is also sure to attract international attention.