Retired French racing driver Hervé Poulain is the father of the “Art Car,” having commissioned Alexander Calder to paint a BMW 3.0 CSL for the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans. Since then BMW has created nearly two dozen different Art Cars, some of which were fielded at Le Mans by Poulain, though BMWs wasn’t the only brand he worked with. This 1998 Porsche 993 GT2 R that he raced was on display at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance this year, and it’s probably the only Art Car that needs a NSFW warning.
One of the featured classes at the Concours this year was for 1990s BPR and FIA GT race cars, with a variety of race cars placed next to their roadgoing counterparts. The class had everything from McLaren F1s and Bugatti EB110s to Jaguar XJ220s and Mercedes CLK GTRs. In that company, a Porsche 911 can seem a bit tame, but the 993-generation 911 GT2 is something special, built as a racing version of the 911 Turbo to compete in the GT2 series. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how many were made — the Concours booklet says there were 161 road cars and 194 race cars — but all were rear-wheel drive with a twin-turbo 3.6-liter engine making between 450 and 592 horsepower in race form, upgraded brakes and suspension, and wide fenders and a huge wing.
For the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans, Poulain commissioned French cartoonist Georges Wolinski to make an Art Car out of a 993 GT2. It was dubbed the “Naked Lady” due to the naked ladies all over it, though the illustrations are less raunchy than you might expect. The sponsor of the car was tile company Tuiles TBF, and the overall body of the car has a light blue pattern that looks like the scalloped roof tiles of a house. On the hood, a naked woman is lounging on a towel, reading a book and petting a cat. The driver’s side shows a man standing on a ladder to kiss a mostly clothed woman who is leaning out of a window — OK, it’s not really a kiss as they’re just touching tongues, which feels very French — while the passenger side shows another woman leaning out of a window and holding a yellow heart. On the roof, a fourth woman in a revealing dress with heart sunglasses on her head is looking out of a window down at the woman on the hood. All of the characters have huge smiles on their faces, and it’s all pretty charming, I have to say.
In the race, the GT2 was driven by Poulain along with Eric Graham and Jean-Luc Maury-Laribière. They started 47th on the grid, dead last place, but finished in 20th overall and 6th place in their class. This 911 was the final Art Car piloted by Poulain, as he retired from racing following the 1998 season. The cartoonist Wolinski worked on a few other race cars, and he was sadly killed in the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting.
NSFW images below
