BMW pickup truck ruled out

BMW won't resort to badge-engineering.

BMW has firmly ruled out following rival Mercedes-Benz into the pickup truck segment. The company argued it doesn't have the necessary hardware or expertise to build a credible truck, and it doesn't want to resort to badge-engineering.

"We have no plans for it. Currently, in our product portfolio, there is no pickup truck, and we don't intend to plan for that, either," said Vikram Pawah, the head of BMW's Australian division, in an interview with website GoAuto. His comments are significant; Australia would undoubtedly be one of the model's largest markets.

Pawah's comments echo statements made by Klaus Froelich, the head of BMW's research and development division. He explained that designing a proper truck would require using a body-on-frame architecture, which the Munich-based firm would need to develop from scratch. While truck sales are healthy in key markets like the United States, Australia, and South Africa, the luxury pickup segment is too small for BMW to justify designing one from scratch.

Option two would be to put BMW emblems on a truck made by another automaker. Mercedes-Benz followed that route, the X-Class is a re-badged Nissan Navara, but Froelich isn't open to the idea of resorting to badge-engineering. "We will never do badge-engineering," he told GoAuto.