BMW Wants a Piece of the Mercedes G-Class Success.

Of course, BMW is now planning to compete with the Mercedes G-Wagen. Something like this could have a massive profit margin and appeal to the many rich nerds who want to show off their pretend adventurous lifestyle to their less fortunate friends, co-workers and family members.

This could be a cash cow for BMW. As we can already predict, it will probably won’t be pretty. For a second after the Neue Klasse concepts, there was a bit of hope. Hope that BMW could actually design a classy mass produced car or SUV. While the new i3 is OK, it’s “just” OK. And basically nothing like the concept. On the other hand, new SUVs like the iX3 or iX5 are just plain ghastly. And things seem to be getting much worse than ever. 

This new “rugged SUV” will be offered as an EV or a Hybrid. The new Model will apparently be built in the US at BMW’s South Carolina plant. It seemsBMW has been thinking about this for a few years and has been very impressed with the Rivian R1. 

Of course, something like this would be very expensive. The new SUV is rumored to be based on the same platform as the new X5. Instead of being built on the EV-only BMW Neue Klasse platform used for the upcoming iX3. That change will allow the new model to offer a PHEV powertrain as well. Power for the EV could reach over 600HP. And over 500HP for the hybrid. Pretty crazy but at these prices, numbers sell…

This is not something that we will be seeing anytime soon since production is rumored to start in 2028. However, we could see a concept version before. Just to put the Mercedes G-Wagen on notice and shake things up a bit.

The images above show what the new “Rugged” BMW could look like. In what would probably be its favorite environment. Fancy and expensive neighborhoods…