The actual concept of wanting make a E39 M5 in to a ute is not even that easy to type to this page. Well, I guess I should let you know what on earth made me take steps to rip apart a BMW legend. To say it's a bit "out of left field" is an understatement.
Let the story begin. I grew up in Australia on a small dairy farm (Cohuna) for the first 18 years of my life. The "ute" had always been an Aussie icon to a boy from the bush and a vital way of life for many rural Australians. A few years pass by and I find myself living in the US playing the US PGA Tour. I've always loved cars and been an avid BMW fan since I first spotted the M cars in local Australian car magazines. But by the mid 90's I knew I had to one day own a M car of some kind. I get a short fast drive in 1998 of the long awaited E39 M5. I was blown off my feet with how good this car was, no factory four door car could touch this M5 for many years.
So in 2000 I collect my first performance car, a blue M5 in Orlando Florida. My habit of not "leaving good enough alone" was evident when after 4,500 miles I sent the engine to Germany to get some custom internal work done, mixed with headers/custom exhaust/suspension & wheels to have the most powerful M5 in the US for a few years (460hp) Customizing a car is nothing new, but little did I know that when after washing the M5 one day I take a few pictures and noticed one picture sort of made the car look a bit "ute" like. I remember thinking wouldn't that be an interesting idea "an M5 ute"...hmm
Years pass by, and I decide I needed to own a car for my days in Australia. I was tired of not owning a car for my summers down under. I was having a hard time deciding on what I wanted from my Aussie car and I knew that if there ever was a time follow through with my idea of a few years back, this was the time. I needed to find a suitable donor car for a start. There wasn't many E39 M5's laying around on the market in 2005, but the newest version was helping people move out their E39 model and change up to the V10. I mention that I'm looking for a donor car to a friend, he mentions that he'll sell his to me, as he wanted to trade his in and wait till the V8 M3 comes out (not a bad idea). Not to mention he had the finest 2003 M5 in Australia to start with. It was more costly then the others on the market but it was 2-3 years newer then the much cheaper M5's out there. His car had many of the tricks already installed on the car that I'd have to add later anyway, so the deal was done.
What was a bit surprising was his attitude to my concept. He had no problem with me chopping up his pride and joy for an undertaking of this magnitude.
Trying to find a shop that had the skills for this sort of work was going to be difficult and time consuming. I was looking at a mag in Noosa Heads in Queensland (Unique Cars) and I noticed a company called Southern Rod and Custom in Deniliquin New South Wales that was only 75min drive from my home town. I read on about their work and a reputation as one of the best in Australia for any sort of custom car work. I get back to the farm for Christmas and decide to go for a drive and have a chat to Shane at SRC about my plans. I could see in the 3 hours I spent with him that he was very capable of creating this weird vision.
I needed to see what the ute might look like on paper, this is when Ryan from Stylemaster set to creating many sketches of how the concept would look. The design theme was set and it was time to get this all under way.
There has been some discussions of this project on the web so far, some viewers are not as happy with what I'm doing as I am, some a bit more "whatever floats your boat" supporters.
You now have an insight of how all of this came about, but that's the easy stuff.
Making it all come together is another story....stay tuned if your "sick" enough to watch.
I'm looking forward to watching this world first (using an M5) get started and one day to a finished product.
Stuart Appleby's m5uke (m5 truck)
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Originally Posted by Captain-Obvious
