[Dackelone]

Are you ready for a X3 pickup truck design with Dutch doors/tailgate ?






































BMW gave engineering students at Clemson University the task to design & build a BMW pickup concept.


The grad students devised a factory plan that would cost BMW only about $10.2 million in assembly line and process alterations to build the concept. They also proposed a low-cost method of altering the existing X3’s roof line and body shape by using 3-D printing of structural materials.

“It’s a BMW with a trunk available for hauling,” Dubey says, “but still fit for speed and performance.”

BMW’s U.S. marketing, finance and engineering departments directed the Clemson team to create a vehicle capable of hauling potted orange trees in the back -- but without losing the luxury interior, ride and performance of a BMW sports car, says Ashish Dubey, the project’s manager at Clemson’s International Center for Automotive Research.

BMW insisted that any part or material used in the project must be BMW-approved.

BMW also urged the student team to create a low-cost manufacturing plan to produce up to 5,000 of the vehicles, and to bring the hypothetical model derivation in at no more than $8,000 above the current X3 sticker price.



Imagining the impossible -- a Bimmer pickup?
http://www.autonews.com/article/2014...-bimmer-pickup