BMW Reevaluating Pickups

BMW AG, which ruled out the pickup truck market as recently as last year, is taking another look at the potential for a Bimmer truck.

“We're watching the space closely," Marc Werner, the managing director of the company’s Australian operations, tells Motoring.

To help gauge the viability for a luxury pickup, BMW will monitor rival Mercedes-Benz as it prepares to launch a midsize pickup being co-developed with Nissan. The Mercedes version, which is due in about a year, will share a body-on-frame platform with the Nissan Navara.

With sales of pickup trucks increasing around the world, more carmakers are entering the segment. Fiat, Hyundai, PSA, Renault and Volkswagen also have recently launched—or plan to do so soon—new pickups. A Lexus truck based on parent Toyota’s Hilux model also has been rumored.

But Werner acknowledges that it will be more difficult for BMW to add a pickup because, unlike rivals, it lacks experience in the truck or commercial vehicle market.

Werner’s boss, Hendrik von Kuenheim, who heads BMW’s Asia-Pacific and South African operations, said in May 2015 that pickup trucks don't fit the company’s genes, culture and core values of “joy, dynamics and innovation.” At the time, he characterized the likelihood of there ever being a BMW pickup as “definitely not.”