BMW M5 Ute – Down Under Chop

We know a lot of you boyz out there will call this chop a blasphemy and you’ll probably be right. Still though, having lived the first years of my life in Australia -and while I might disagree with the choice of a modern classic like the BMW M5 E39, I understand what motivated this bloke from down under.

See, Australians just love big, brassy, V8 muscle cars. While Americans dropped out of the muscle car game in the mid 70’s, Australians kept going on and on, not only with coupes and 4door saloons but also with Utes and Panel Vans. Since the project’s not finished yet, we’ll keep an eye on this one and return with the final pics. Till then check out the photos and read what the owner has to say about it.

BMW M5 UTE OWNER: "I grew up in Australia for my first 20 years of my life and the "ute" had always been an Aussie icon to a boy from the bush, a way of life for many Australians. I've been lucky enough to have owned in the US one of the best sedans the automotive industry has ever produced in the BMW E39 M5.

I wanted to create a special combination of a cross over M5 ute concept not long after I purchased my M5 in Florida in 2000. This ute idea came to me many years ago when I looked at a picture I took of my M5 and thought that it would make a great ute....what was I thinking?

Years pass by, and I decide I needed to follow through with this concept a bit more. Five years pass and I find a very suitable donor car from a friend in Queeensland that probably had the finest 2003 M5 in Australia. He was happy to have his pride and joy "chopped up" for an undertaking of this magnitude. The car had many mods that I was going to put on a lesser car but he had done all the hard yards for me.

Trying to find a shop that had the skills for this sort of work was going to be difficult and time consuming, but in a flash I bumped in to Shane from Southern Rod and Custom in southern New South Wales Australia. His reputation in the hot rod game is held very highly. A quick visit to his work shop that was only one hour from my home as a boy. I could see in the 3 hours I spent with him that he was very capable to create my vision. Ryan from Stylemasters created the sketches you see here, that look great. The time line for a job like this is about 9 - 12 months. I'm looking forward to watching this world first get started and one day a finished product"

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Via: Jalopnik