Even certain forms of customizing like swoops and swirls and flames and pinstripes don’t necessarily transform an automobile into something to be admired in the art community. Don’t even get us started on the artistic value of a stock car. All those ads? Blech…

But art—real art—can be accomplished with a car as the canvas when a real artist is involved in making it that way, and that’s what BMW’s Art Car project has been about for the past 35 years. Andy Warhol designed an Art Car in 1979, and now, in 2010, controversial artist Jeff Koons has been given the opportunity to do the same. Only now are we starting to get a sense of what this new work will look like.

Any BMW dealership Palo Alto has to offer could sell you an M3 GT2, but none could tell you exactly what Koons’s version of the vehicle look like. Any BMW dealership Woodside has to offer could probably point you in the direction of someone who knows art—at least in the direction of the nearest art museum—but they haven’t really had any idea either.

Until now.

This year’s Art Car—only the third this millennium—will be based off of several high-speed pictures of racecars smashed into a collage on the vehicle. The concept drawings we’ve seen so far have been simply intergalactic and gorgeous, but there’s no way of knowing how the final product will turn out without actually seeing it. But we can guess with confidence that it will be artistic as all get out, and that even respected artists across the world can look at this with the same fondness as Warhol’s car and admit that yes, sometimes cars can be art.

But come on. Is it really ever as bad as the news paints it? How many times have we seen stories like, “Is your toothpaste giving you cancer? More at 10”? Yes, businesses across the world suffered, but we’re on the upswing now. There are things to look forward to. And if you’re BMW, you’re thanking your lucky stars that in places like San Carlos, 5 Series inventories are helping your company pull in reasonable profits and keeping the shareholders happy.

It’s the demand in Germany and the United States for the very popular 5 Series that’s allowing BMW to predict sharp, steady increases in profit for 2010. The company lost $365 million last year but seems to be rebounding well in the first quarter of this new calendar, where stocks have risen 2.3% already since January 1.

What makes the 5 Series so popular is its similarities to the more expensive 7 Series, yet made available for a considerably lower price. About 70% of the parts used in the 7 Series are also used in the 5 Series, which is what has made all the recent deliveries of the vehicle worldwide go so successfully. In fact, in searching for a great BMW dealership, Palo Alto patrons need not look much farther than Peter Pan BMW. They, like every other Beamer lot in the country, have the 5 Series cars on display. Go check them out for yourself. See what all the fuss is about.

With cars like the 5 Series GT Crossover, BMW clearly is back on the way up from the gloom, which, as we’re seeing more and more in today’s world, isn’t as gloomy as it was a year ago. There’s no need to panic, folks. Things are starting to stabilize, and BMW plans on keeping itself the most recognizable luxury car brand in the world. Not even a “2012”-style natural disaster could keep them from that.