Are we finally getting a BMW bakkie?

Remember last year when BMW Group’s senior vice-president of Asia, Pacific and South Africa, Hendrik von Kuenheim, said such a vehicle “does not fit our genes and our culture”?

BMW Australia managing director Marc Werner now says: “Never say never.” It sounds like the Munich-based company could be slowly changing its mind.

“Never say never. We’re watching the space closely,” admitted Marc Werner, the managing director of BMW’s Australian division, in an interview with Motoring.

With the rapid growth in the global bakkie segment over the past few years, the competition has attracted an array of new competitors from all over the automotive spectrum, including Renault, Fiat, and Peugeot Citroën.

Just recently, Mercedes has ben developing its own bakkie, deemed the industry’s most luxurious, and speculations suggest that Lexus could launch its own version of the Toyota Hilux in the coming years. All this bakkie growth should signal that we could be closer to getting a BMW bakkie.

Werner cautiously pointed out that BMW isn’t in the best position to launch a bakkie because it has never dabbled in commercial vehicles before. In contrast, Mercedes can pull it off because it has a long history of engineering trucks and vans, and Audi could enter the segment by simply slapping new badges on the Volkswagen Amarok.  “Yes it’s harder for us, but we’ll be watching how Benz goes,” summed up Werner.

However, as Mercedes has partnered with another maker already producing a bakkie platform, so BMW could too. It already has a partnership with Toyota to work on high-end sports cars and could perhaps influence that to develop its own version of the Hilux.

We hope it won’t take BMW that long.