One of the hardest decisions for a car lover is putting exactly the car you need and want in your garage. A pickup truck is incredibly practical, a convertible would be the perfect summer car, and a sporty coupe would be an exciting everyday car. How can you choose just one? What if you didn’t have to? BMW once teamed up with coachbuilder Karmann to create a wild three-in-one concept that could have ticked all three boxes. The 1998 BMW K2 started life as an E36 3 Series, but somehow became a pickup truck, a convertible, and a coupe all at the same time.

We were alerted to the existence of this vehicle by Lee Harry on X, who jokingly calls the K2 “the original Cybertruck.” The idea of ​​a car with a hidden cargo bed long preceded this late 1990s invention. However, when a vehicle like this comes along, I tend to think of a Studebaker Wagonaire or a Frazer Vagabond/Kaiser Traveler, long before the Germans come to mind.

If you ask me about more modern examples, I’d be quick to tell you about the GMC Envoy XUV and its clever roof, or how the concept for the original Toyota RAV4 had an interior that could be converted into a cargo bed for a dirt bike. Far less well known is this concept from the late 1990s that saw BMW achieve similar versatility, albeit with a much smaller 3 Series.

Almost a secret

As our readers know, I love to dig deep into every vehicle I find. Forgotten treasures, great motorcycles, dream diesels, trick trikes… every machine has a story, and sometimes that story is even more compelling than the vehicle itself.

So you can imagine my frustration when I couldn’t find much information about this very special car. BMW doesn’t mention the K2 at all on its corporate websites. Wilhelm Karmann GmbH hasn’t existed since 2010 and although it had an archived website, the only mention of the K2 I could find was this tiny blurb:

1998 BMW-K2

Also in 1998, BMW had Karmann develop the body for an “all-rounder”: The multifunctional BMW K2 based on the BMW 3 Series E36 Compact combines several body variants: It is a coupe, pickup and convertible all in one.

I even searched the German internet, but didn’t get much further than what you see here. Why did BMW ask about this little monster? If you have some time to spare today, click on this link and it will take you to the Karmann history page where you can see almost a century of really crazy cars the company has built.

At least we know which car the concept is based on.

The BMW E36 3 Series was an ambitious project. It was intended to succeed the E30, which had already achieved legendary status before the last example rolled off the production line in 1994. Its successor, the E36, began production in 1990 and, as BMW explains, a leitmotif of the E36 was to do things differently:

The best thing to do is to do everything differently, thought the designer of the new car; Pinky Lai was born in Hong Kong and had worked at Ford in Cologne before moving to BMW and then Porsche. The E36 was larger and had four doors as standard. The headlights were behind glass. A separate coupe version was added to the product range. The Touring’s tailgate opened across its full width. The convertible was of course based on the stylish coupe. The occupants benefited from improved aerodynamics and an automatically extending rollover protection. The E36 even came as a hatchback body. This was reminiscent of the 2002 Touring and was called the “Compact”. The people behind it were brave and had visions. Another unusual design was the convertible sedan from the Stuttgart company Baur. It was based on the four-door sedan and was larger than all 3 Series before it.

It was a given that there would be no compromises in terms of chassis and performance. The 3 Series had to be agile and safe, the engines rev freely and the gearshift crisp. It was a BMW, after all. The new car offered the balance, the confidence and the driving pleasure that enthusiasts were used to and now expected. This was especially true with one of the lavish six-cylinder engines on board, but the four-cylinders also had a penchant for revving. And the diesel units had long been established. The new 3 Series reinterpreted the driving pleasure of its predecessors for the modern age and offered a power range of 100 to 321 hp. Only an all-wheel drive version was missing from the line-up, although this returned with the next generation.

The compact car was also a big deal at the time. BMW realized it needed a volume model and a way to appeal to younger buyers who might not have been able to afford the money needed for a typical BMW at the time.

So BMW sent a model to the lower end of the market with the Compact. This squat BMW is the same as an E36 sedan at the front, but has a unique tailgate at the back. BMW saved some money by equipping the Compact with the E30’s trailing arm rear suspension. The end result was a car that was 7.9 inches shorter than a regular 3 Series, but rode on the same wheelbase. Most of the engines for the Compact were four-cylinder engines or underpowered diesels. The largest engine and only The first choice for more than four cylinders was the 2.5-liter inline six-cylinder M52.

The Compact was available at a much lower starting price than the base 3 Series. Still, the Compact cost BMW around $500 million to develop. Here in America, we got the Compact as the 318ti, which had a 1.8-liter four-cylinder and later a 1.9-liter four-cylinder, but not the 2.5-liter six-cylinder. Just like the European version, the American BMW 318ti was the cheapest way to get a four-wheel-drive roundel.

The K2

The mention of the Compact is important here because Karmann says it built the K2 concept car based on the Compact.

This part gets a little weird when you look at the photos. The vehicle appears to have similar fenders, interior, side panels and windows to the E36 coupe. But it also has the rear styling of the Compact. Unfortunately, given Karmann’s current disposition, we don’t know if this is a heavily modified coupe or a compact, but that’s not so important.

What’s pretty cool is what Karmann did with everything behind the front seats. The crazy bits start with the roof. There’s a large glass panel and a steel roof panel with a third brake light that stretches across the entire panel. In the closed position, the vehicle just looks like a silly 3 Series Compact. However, the roof panel can also slide back towards the rear of the vehicle. The glass is stored in the roof to create a funky convertible.

Oh, but Karmann isn’t done yet. The roof can also slide back to its forward position over the front seats, taking the glass panel with it. This feature reveals a cargo bed! What looks like a hatch is actually a tailgate, turning the K2 into a true car-based truck. I even like that there’s a divider window for the interior while the K2 is in truck mode. The cargo bed doesn’t look like an afterthought either. It has skids and what look like tie-down points for hauling stuff.

BMW Life points out that the concept featured a few other minor changes, including mirrors and wheels from the M3. The engine under the hood is reportedly the 1.9-liter M44 four-cylinder, making 138 hp and 133 lb-ft of torque.

This is where the trail goes cold. There are no pictures of the concept hauling stuff, and we don’t know why BMW hired Karmann to build it in the first place. If I could make a guess, I’d say BMW may have been trying to appeal to the active lifestyle of the younger buyers it was trying to appeal to, but that’s all I’ve got.

It’s a shame that only one of these was built and there don’t seem to be many of them. The K2 sounds like one of those vehicles that would be so much fun. It’s a coupe, a convertible and a truck all in one! How cool would it be to cruise around the corners with an old BMW airhead motorcycle in the back seat?

The funny thing is that this is not even the first time BMW has experimented with car-based trucks. BMW also once built a workshop truck out of an E30 M3 and in 2011 also turned an M3 into a truck. Oh, those stupid Germans

I would like to, no I need to learn more about the BMW K2. If you have any further information, email me at [email protected].

(Images: BMW/Karmann)