Automotive Engineering - May 2018 - 6

SUPPLIER EYE
Why aren't there more unibody pickups?

rowing up in southern Ontario provides a constant dose of the Canadian
Broadcasting Corp. Along with the
staple of Hockey Night in Canada on
Saturdays during my youth, there was an interesting CBC program called Quirks and Quorks.
Q&Q dealt with the oddities of science-seeking
to explain the unexplainable to the layman.
Any potential automotive version of Q&Q
would have to investigate a rare, man-made oddity: the unibody pickup truck. While not quite a
unicorn, unibody pickups aren't exactly thick on
the ground. You'd need only the fingers of one
hand to count their number in the past 25 years.
Their oddball history in North America began
with VW's Rabbit Pickup, produced in the company's Pennsylvania plant from 1979-82.
Derived from the first-generation Golf, the compact Rabbit Pickup was a strategic play-it enabled VW to skirt the infamous 25% 'chicken tax'
levied on 2-door pickups imported into the US.
During the same period, Subaru also avoided
the truck tariff with its imported BRAT-a carbased 'utility coupe.' Carpeting and rear-facing
plastic jump seats in the cargo box allowed
Subaru to cleverly classify the BRAT as a passenger car. It was discontinued in 1985.
In 1986 AMC launched the Jeep Comanche, a
pickup version of the popular XJ Cherokee.
Sized between a compact and midsize truck,
Comanche was a 'semi-unibody' design, incorporating frame rails under the cargo box. Jeep
fans loved it, but production lasted only to 1992.
Others have followed. Subaru briefly tried
again with its Baja, a derivation of the Outback.
Honda then jumped in with the Ridgeline, now
in its second generation and currently the sole
u-pickup in the world's biggest pickup market.
Hyundai has been studying the space for a decade and is preparing its Tucson-based Santa
Cruz for 2020. VW recently showed its Atlasbased Tanoak concept that follows the Ridgeline
model. Both would be built in the U.S., avoiding
the 'foul' tax.

6 May 2018

Michael Robinet
Managing Director
IHS Markit
michael.robinet
@ihsmarkit.com

To get the green
light, unibody
pickups must
outperform
other lower-risk
CUV variants to
expand volume.
They appear
poised to make
a return.

With scores of highly-flexible C & D-segment
unibody platforms available for u-pickup duty,
the scarcity of current offerings is puzzling. Why
aren't there more?
Most of the development cost and complexity
of a unibody platform is embedded from the
A-post forward (A-post and engine/crash box).
It would thus seem wise to derive as many variants as possible, to increase capacity utilization
and reduced fixed cost per vehicle. Therein lies
the rub: OEMs have several choices today when
planning CUV derivatives. Two-row, three-row,
luxury and sport variants-there are many highvolume options. A unibody pickup would need
to outperform other lower-risk variants to expand volume.
U-pickups often are considered by those
OEMs lacking a capable, high-volume traditional
body-on-frame (BOF) platform. Volume is key.
Differing build technologies, the need to outsource the frame to a supplier and a substantially different design process for BOF pickups
act as barriers to entry for unibody-centric
OEMs. Engineering and building a BOF structure
and vehicle family requires a multiple-cycle
commitment. Scale alone dictates a
~200,000-units starting point. In fact, most of
the major BOF pickup players have annual volumes approaching half a million units or more.
Deciding to enter the pickup fray through the
BOF window is a significant though popular undertaking. Of the 6.1 million pickups forecast by
IHS Markit to be produced in 2018, only 2.6% are
unibody. That slice is forecast to grow to 7% of
all pickups by 2025.
OEMs are chasing an increasingly fragmented
market, and younger consumers may be less
concerned with extreme towing and payload
capability than having innovative utility, enhanced fuel economy and better driveability. For
many OEMs, entering the u-pickup fray may be
an economic choice. But whatever the motivation, I expect u-pickups to be less quirky and
more mainstream in the future.

AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING

Automotive Engineering - May 2018

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