Hardcore BYD Shark 6 MEG off-road ute still coming

BYD has made no secret of its lofty ambitions Down Under and now that the Shark 6 plug-in hybrid ute range has expanded to three variants and nabbed improved capabilities, the brand’s local COO has promised even more variants are on the way – one of which will all but certainly be a hardcore mud-plugging off-road hero to take on the Ford Ranger Raptor.

Seen as the benchmark when it comes to performance-flavoured off-road utes, the Ranger Raptor’s supreme capability stems from a combination of its 292kW 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6, beefed up brakes and adaptive Fox suspension.

It’s not the first time BYD has hinted at a rival to the Blue Oval’s tough truck, with the Shark 6 Meg nomenclature teased way back in 2024.

And now the new Shark 6 Performance has arrived with a more powerful petrol-electric powertrain, BYD has the bones to build around.

BYD Australia’s chief operating officer Stephen Collins’ made local intentions abundantly clear: “A performance model is something we’re definitely considering at the top end.

“At the top end, it’s clearly about performance; on road performance, off-road performance, but we’ll see how that plays out.”

But asked whether it would arrive with locally enhanced suspension and even more power than the new 350kW/700Nm Shark 6 Performance, he said it would come down to what Aussies want.

“We just need to think of what our customers want, and it's probably a combination of all those things.

“Then it gets down to people – not like me – but the technical people, and all the product planners who can work out whether we can [build it] off the same suspension systems and all that sort of stuff.

“I think it ultimately just gets down to what these customers want.”

Next cab off the rank for the Shark 6’s local range expansion is a more tow-friendly (3500kg) version of the just-launched cab-chassis. From there, there could more fleet-focussed and performance models.

“I think 4x4 dual-cabs is where we want to play. And what variants of those, I guess we’ll work that out,” Collins said.

“But single-cabs, 4x2s, I don’t think that’s where we want to be playing.

“It’s obvious that, you know, the leaders in the dual-cab market have more performance models, even more fleet models, maybe mining spec cars... we’re looking at all that.

“It’s certainly not the end of the story with Shark variants.”

*Lead image generated by AI

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