A truck at the Nordschleife? No, no service truck. One that does some 190 mph. Possibly more. A truck made by BMW. In a press release, BMW dubs it “the world’s fastest pickup.” If they say so. One needs to be very careful with these statements in Germany, lest someone will sue you faster than the truck completes the Nordschleife lap.
BMW’s in-house tuning shop BMW M GmbH follows the BMW M3 Coupé, the BMW M3 Convertible and the BMW M3 Sedan – with a truck. As the pictures will attest, they basically chopped the metal off the rear of a Dreier and gave it the 420 hp 8-cylinder engine familiar from the other hopped-up Dreiers.
By now you probably want to know how the bimmer truck did in the Nordschleife. That is still a secret at BMW: “Official lap times have not yet been released, but the needle in the dial vouched for a top speed of 300 km/h,” says the press release.
However, they built a credible half ton truck. It is officially good for 450kg load capacity. The comment by BMW that the truck bed has the “capacity to carry up to 20 standard 46-inch golf bags” gives an indication that the world’s fastest truck is not intended for farm work. But if you want to lug around some horses or a boat: The BMW M3 Pickup is the first M3 in the more than quarter century history of the M series to come with a tow hitch.
Will you be able to buy it? Not yet. Officially, the world’s fastest truck is a one-off which “is earmarked for use as a workshop transport vehicle for BMW M GmbH.” Yeah, sure. A factory truck with a press release? A factory truck with “a world premiere on April 1 ?” Who are they kidding? The current BMW M3 Pickup has gone through the lengthy and complicated procedures to earn its road certification. You don’t do that if you just want to move parts from one end of the factory to the other at 300 kilometers per hour.
But wait a minute: It already is April 1. It’s an outrage. How come they let members of the accredited automotive press wait until the official launch? Where is our press truck?
Awesome.
And I thought the story on the Molvo was the April Fool’s joke
April Fool’s.
+1 on Awesome.
Any word on what the Aussies think about it? Granted, I guess the hi-po truck market is pretty well served with the Maloo over there.
April fools or not, that thing is cool.
That thing looks like the home-made trucks I used to see years ago when someone took an old station wagon, cut off the roof behind the front seat, cut a piece of plywood with a plexiglas window for a wall behind the front seat and, voila’! – a pickup truck! This won’t be offered for sale in this world, just another trial balloon, or a joke on a stupid day somebody made up a long time ago!
I hate reading the internet today.
Yeah. 90+% of the stuff just goes straight into the “memory hole”! “Fuggetaboutit!”
It’s the new 4-1 series.
“Mister Bentley builds the fastest TRUCKS in the world.” – Mister Bugatti
Norbert must have demanded a response to the Ferrari 150.
It needs some falsies to round off the back half of the roll hoop.
This is only interesting because nobody’s spent the coin to ship Bubba Drift’s blown-LS1 El Camino to the ‘ring. Adjust the suspension for non-drifting events, lose the slushbox and that Bimmer is toast.
Not April Fool’s… Here’s an article from 3/15:
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/03/15/spy-shots-bmw-flings-m3-pickup-around-the-ring/
Who said it’s an April Fool’s joke? We already called Munich and complained. The gentlemen were all in a meeting and promised to get back to us.
It May be 1 April, but there have been spy shots of this thing for about a month now. I’m pretty sure it’s real.
JALOPNIK WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!?!
Seriously, I’m a BMW fanboy but…why?
Imagine what it would look like with half a ton of manure in the back…
Yeah, this has been around for a while. To bring one to the Nurburgring would surely get all the automotive facebookers facebookin’ and the twits a-twitterin’. This is just BMW having a laugh at the media’s expense.
Now, who CANNOT picture this in the Craftsman Truck Series, hehe.
I only guess how that Ute would sell down here.
Then I imagine it like some of the SSV, Maloo, XR8 and XR6 I’ve seen… carrying contractor stuff around