BMW has circled the pickup truck segment several times over the past few years, but has never landed in it. In 2016, just after Mercedes-Benz designed the Nissan Navara in the short-lived X-Class, an executive at the Munich-based company confirmed that his team was “watching [pickup] in a tiny space.” In 2019, a concept pickup based on the X7, intended for transporting motorcycles, debuted. However, the final decision is “no”.
“I think the pickup truck goes beyond the brand,” explained Bernd Körber, senior vice president for BMW brand and product management, in an interview with Enthusiast magazine BMW Blog. “Fundamentally, I would say that for a brand like BMW to stand out and produce dream cars that truly bring out the essence of BMW, we need niche models,” he added. In his opinion, the truck simply won’t work.
Mercedes-Benz came to a similar conclusion: it discontinued the X-Class (which was not imported to the United States) three years after the model was introduced. We haven’t seen a production truck from Audi yet, but the Activesphere concept shown in 2023 featured a truck-like cargo bed.
That doesn’t mean BMW buyers will have to look elsewhere if they want a vehicle capable of stern off-roading. Körber said BMW Blog that his team has noticed that rugged off-road vehicles such as the Land Rover Defender and Toyota Land Cruiser have become increasingly popular in recent years. BMW doesn’t have Land Rover’s off-road heritage, although it briefly owned the British brand and supplied some of its engines, but it is open to the idea of providing buyers with a more outdoorsy alternative to the popular SUVs in its lineup such as the X3 and X5.
“Open to” is not synonymous with “development” and it seems that nothing is given once and for all; it’s just an idea floating around Munich board meetings. One factor in favor of a more rugged SUV is that it would have global appeal. “Rugged is an captivating trend because it has moved away from that trend [being a] a phenomenon in the USA, South Africa and Australia into a global phenomenon,” Körber noted.
If the model receives the proverbial green airy for production, BMW Blog speculates that it will arrive as a more off-road-ready evolution of the existing model, rather than as a standalone nameplate. In other words, we’re more likely to see a jacked-up X5 with fat tires than a boxy, G-Class-like SUV designed from the ground up to traverse the desert. However, there is no information when the decision will be made.
