Frank Stella BMW: A Bright Racer With A Dark Past

There’s a new face peeking out from behind the glass in BMW of Southampton’s showroom.

It’s a head-turning shock of color. It’s a one-of-a-kind machine. It’s a bright racer with a dark past. It’s a car with a fresh start.

BMW of Southampton owner, 45-year-old Jonathan Sobel, is the newest driver behind the BMW M1 Procar on display. Of the 455 M1 cars ever made—the first of BMW’s M series that was unveiled in 1978—only an estimated 54 cars were the Procar version built specifically for racing purposes.

These cars were the fastest German sports cars of their era, with 470 horsepower and a top speed of 193 miles per hour. The groundbreaking design—fiberglass bodywork wrapped around a multi-tubular “space frame” chassis—weighed in at just 2,200 pounds, which was extremely light by industry standards at the time.

But the Procar’s status isn’t what sets Mr. Sobel’s M1 apart from all the others. It is one of 18 BMW Art Cars in existence, which were “created” by legendary artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and, in this case, Frank Stella.

Of the 18, Mr. Sobel’s is the only car that is not owned by the manufacturer.

Until August 2011, the car was owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, which sold it for $854,000 to Mr. Sobel during a Bonhams auction in Pebble Beach in order to finance other acquisitions. The pre-sale estimates ranged from $450,000 to $600,000, according to reports.

“I thought it was a terrific car. I’ve been a Frank Stella fan for a while,” Mr. Sobel said during a telephone interview last week. “Combining the car—I’ve always been a car buff—with the art was a unique opportunity. It’s the marriage of my two passions. I was thrilled to have it. I thought it would go for much more.”

The story behind Mr. Sobel’s M1 begins in 1976, when Mr. Stella was asked to paint an Art Car for BMW—this one a 3.0 CSL. The next year, the artist traveled to Europe to watch the car compete and met the men who raced it: Swedish drivers Ronnie Peterson and Peter Gregg.

He began to closely follow the sport and even traveled with the BMW Formula Two racing team in 1978. But at the Formula One grand prix in Italy, Mr. Stella and Mr. Gregg watched as Mr. Peterson crashed the car. He was pronounced dead hours later.

After a year passed by, Mr. Gregg specially ordered a M1 Procar from Munich, specifying the Black Watch Tartan pattern for the seats. On the passenger’s side, a patch reads, “Custom made for P.H. Gregg.”

In 1979, Mr. Stella painted the car in Jacksonville, Florida to his “Polar Coordinates” design, a series of paintings the artist dedicated to Mr. Peterson shortly after his death. The design adds a certain aesthetic to the M1’s exterior. The colors and patters of it change with each turn of the racetrack, shifting in each viewer’s perspective. His signature on one of the rear window louvres is protected with clear coat.

In June 1980, the two men—Mr. Gregg took the wheel and Mr. Stella was in the passenger seat—were headed for Le Mans, where the driver was scheduled to be in the 24-hour race there in a 924 Carrera GTS for the Porsche factory team. But they ran into some trouble.

According to several accounts, Mr. Gregg encountered an oncoming car while attempting to pass an oxcart and swerved his car into a ditch. After his recovery, Mr. Gregg—a six-time world champion in the International Motor Sports Association and nicknamed “Peter Perfect”—suffered persistent double vision that effectively ended his racing career, leaving him depressed. Six months later, a hitchhiker found Mr. Gregg’s dead body in the sand beside a highway in Jacksonville, Florida next to a .38 pistol. He was 40 years old.

According to Bonhams, the car was sold in 1990 by Mr. Gregg’s widow to Stephen and Barry Tenzer of Manhattan, who then donated it to the Guggenheim in 1999. The Frank Stella BMW M1 Art Car has been driven on only a few occasions.

“It’s a race car. Race cars don’t drive like a Porsche or BMW that you take out from the dealership,” Mr. Sobel explained. “They are really rough. It’s very quick and very rough. They’re loud. They take out all of the plush comforts and sound insulation to get rid of the weight. It makes it faster but also louder. And the interior is cramped. It’s for sport. It’s not to drive to Manhattan.”

The new BMW of Southampton showroom opened on April 2. Mr. Sobel unveiled the Frank Stella car that same day. It’s already turned quite a few heads, Mr. Sobel said, and he expects it will turn more.

“People have come in just to look at it,” he reported. “The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. You see something new and unique and different. People have a perception when they walk into a car dealership, and it’s not a positive perception. We’d like to try to change that stereotype, at least in Southampton.”

Also the owner of the Audi, Porsche and MINI dealerships in Southampton, Mr. Sobel is something of a car connoisseur, he said, adding that his two other collectable cars are Ferraris. He and his wife, Marcia, also have a diverse contemporary art collection between their homes in Manhattan and Sagaponack.

The Frank Stella BMW M1 Art Car fits into both collections, Mr. Sobel said. But it doesn’t belong cooped up behind the glass forever.

“It’s been on the track before,” Mr. Sobel said. “At some point, I’ll take it on a track again.”

To see the Frank Stella BMW M1 Art Car, visit the BMW of Southampton showroom at 759 County Road 39A.