BMW Australia is making its case for a BMW bakkie to headquarters in Germany, which would rival vehicles like the Mercedes-Benz X-Class.
CarAdvice interviewed BMW Australia boss, Marc Werner, at the launch of the X2 in Canberra recently. Here Werner admitted that the Bavarian automaker would be foolish to ignore market trends, particularly in markets like Australia and selected others in South East Asia, Africa and South America.
“We have been very pushy regarding utes or pick-ups, and we believe that this is something the company should be looking into. We have raised that with headquarters and certainly investigations are happening as we speak, but it’s too early to speak about the results of that analysis, but if there was a ute we would certainly take it,” said Werner.
Werner was dismissive of the notion that the BMW brand doesn’t lend itself to bakkies, suggesting that when the original X5 came out in 1999, similar arguments were made. Today,however, X-badged vehicles account for the majority of brand sales globally.
“At the end of the day, we need to cater for what the customer and consumer want.”
“But from a pure engineering perspective, everything is possible,” says Werner. “The question is what does the brand stand for and how far you want to stretch it.”
Image rendering by Rain Prisk.
