Too risky: BMW SUV (G74) did not receive approval from management
According to insiders, BMW Group management has not given the green light to the project for a brutal off-roader with the factory code G74, production of which was supposed to begin in 2029 in the United States. The company is currently in cost-cutting mode and cannot afford to release new products it is not 100% sure about.
The fact that BMW was preparing its first full-fledged civilian off-roader in its history, capable of competing with the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and Land Rover Defender, became known a year ago, although the company never officially announced it. Our artist Nikita Chuiko last month showed what a BMW with the factory code G74 could look like — these renders were a huge success online, and many people really liked this design option.
What the real BMW off-roader was supposed to be like, we will most likely never know, because, as the BMWblog resource reported yesterday citing informed sources, the G74 project did not receive approval from management in its current form. Despite the fact that the trend for brutal off-roaders is not yet about to fade away, the BMW board of directors considered this niche too narrow, which means that real sales of the G74 off-roader are unlikely to recoup its development and production launch costs.
There is another restraining factor: BMW Group is currently on the verge of a crisis, cutting costs and launching a voluntary redundancy program for 8,000 employees — under such conditions, investing in a project whose success is uncertain would be unwise. Today, BMW Group published its financial results for the first half of 2026: net profit fell by 28.5% to €2.872 billion.
If the company manages to stabilize its financial performance in the coming years, it may return to the brutal off-roader project, but for now, development of the G74 model has been put on pause.
BMWblog reported interesting details about this project: it turns out that the idea of creating a brutal off-roader was born at BMW three years ago. Initially, it was supposed to be fully electric and based on the Neue Klasse platform, with the code NA5. Assembly was planned to be organized at the environmentally friendly plant in Debrecen (Hungary).
Then, when the global slowdown in demand for electric vehicles began, the technical concept of the off-roader completely changed: it was moved to the CLAR platform so that fuel, hybrid, and purely electric versions could be offered simultaneously. The code NA5 was replaced with G74, and the new planned assembly location became the plant in Spartanburg (USA, South Carolina). Due to the platform change, the BMW off-roader became more brutal and acquired a spare wheel on the tailgate, as in our renders. The interior was planned to be three-row, with a fold-down tailgate bench for picnics and a bunch of accessories for recreation and adventure.
Let us add that in recent years BMW has significantly reduced its model lineup, removing unpopular niche models from it, including the BMW 8 Series, BMW Z4, and GT liftbacks based on the “3 Series” and “5 Series.” The latest niche product from the Bavarian company — the sporty hybrid crossover BMW XM — has frankly failed in the market. In short, for now BMW is betting on mainstream products, and it is not the time to experiment with niche ones.