No BMW pick-up… ever!

Germany's luxury car manufacturers usually cover each other’s moves into new segments, but a senior BMW executive has guaranteed it will never ape Mercedes-Benz and build a pick-up truck.

In 2011 BMW famously revealed the V8-powered 'M3 Pick-up' (pictured here), but it turned out to be an April Fool's joke and BMW Group's senior vice-president of Asia, Pacific and South Africa, Hendrik von Kuenheim, says the Bavarian car-maker has no intention of getting serious about utes. Ever.

“Definitely not, because this does not fit to our genes and our culture,” Von Kuenheim told automotive media in Melbourne this week during a visit to BMW’s Australian outpost.

Mercedes-Benz announced in March it would go ahead and develop a one-tonne utility based on the Nissan Navara and expected to be called the GLT-Class, declaring it will be rolled out in varieties stretching from workhorse to leisure vehicle.

But despite the lure of substantial global sales volume potential, von Kuenheim was adamant in rejecting the prospect of a BMW pick-up.

“There is huge potential in pick-ups,” he acknowledged. “In North America you look at the Ford F-150 pick-up it is the best-selling car.

“You can do it but then you cannot be BMW. You have to be a different company, but this company is not ready to change from the ultimate driving machine and the ultimate successful company in luxury to a mass manufacturer who goes after the volume of pick-up trucks.

“Despite that the Ford F-150 is one hell of a vehicle. If you have that in a twin-cab version it is a great car. But that is Ford.”

Von Kuenheim acknowledged BMW had broken previous taboos, such as moving into the SUV market with the X5 in the late 1990s and last year launching its first front-wheel drive car under the propeller badge, the 2 Series Active Tourer.

This week it also announced the midlife facelift of the company's staple 3 Series will come with a triple-cylinder engine.

“We have talked about front-wheel drive and three-cylinder engines, but there are certain things the BMW brand cannot do because you are moving massively away from your core values of joy, dynamics and innovation,” von Kuenheim said.

He said BMW moved into SUVs after the original Range Rover of the early 1970s first created the luxury SUV and sales began to take off.

“We said ‘when we do this car it needs to drive like a BMW’ and the first-generation E53 X5 was a brilliant car and we put all the BMW genes in that,” von Kuenheim said.

“A BMW X5 M is still very much a BMW, but a pick-up by functionality because it is a utility vehicle that I suppose you would load sheep in Australia… is that what you would like to see from BMW? I don’t think so.”