Despite having toyed with the idea for nearly four decades, BMW has officially rejected the idea of making a high-end bakkie for the global or North American market.
Although the creation of the latest, one-off based on the pre-facelift X7 in 2019 attracted significant attention, the Head of Munich Design, Adrian van Hooydonk, indicated that the vehicle did not fit into the company’s portfolio despite admitting that it did. interest won as to how sophisticated bakkies have become over the last few years.
There is no platform
In the presentation of the model, which came eight years after the debut of the open-deck E92 M3 BMW later admitted that it was only an April Fools joke as the premiere on April 1, then Head of Development, Klaus Fröhlich, spoke about the automaker’s lack of an effective body-on-frame platform nullifies the entry into the bakkie segment.
Also Read: BMW Pick-up becomes reality, but only as a one-off concept
“If you look at the pick-up market… if you look at the pick-up truck segment, there are a lot of utilities, so the average price is very low.
“To do a proper pick-up, you need a ladder frame architecture. I only have two architectures and I haven’t got a proper pick-up truck,” said the Australian carsales.com.au he was quoted as saying.
Work together? Not
He also said plans to join a similar joint venture with the ailing Mercedes-Benz based on the Nissan Navara and, more recently, Volkswagen using the Ford Ranger base for the new Amarok, were also not an option, he said. “we will not do anything badge engineering”.
In the latest development surrounding the bakkie, and in line with last year’s rumors that Audi was allegedly interested, Van Hooydonk told BMWBlog that the bakkie is “obviously not suitable for the BMW brand”.
“We don’t have to follow every trend that happens. If we go to a segment then we want to enter there for the long term. Also, we don’t have to follow every trend that happens,” he said.
“What’s surprising is that these pickup trucks are getting more sophisticated. The electric drivetrain is coming. They are also getting better. It’s all an interesting development. But we don’t need to go and jump on that stuff right away.”
Lineage or BMW van
In addition to the E92 M3, the first indications of BMW were installed in 1986 when it presented a spin-off bakkie prototype of the 3 Series Cabriolet that was eventually known as the M3 Pickup Concept because it replaced the 141 kW 2.0-liter engine. from the Italian market 320si for the original E30 M3 147 kW 2.3 liter S14 unit.
As its eventual successor, the model remains the only one that never entered production.
Additional information from topgear.com.