ANYTHING IS A UTE, IF YOU’RE BRAVE ENOUGH

Two doors and a tray. It’s a simple concept that is woven into the fabric of our history as a nation, and at a time, was one of our great exports too. And while utes are a common sight on Aussie roads, motoring fans from all over the world have customised vehicles to pay homage to the Aussie tradey’s tool of choice.

We tracked down these wild, custom utes from all over the world:

MIGHTY CAR MODS SUBARUTE

When the lads from Mighty Car Mods traveled to the States to do battle with Finnegan and Freiburger on Roadkill, they wanted a vehicle that mixed their tuner backgrounds with their Aussie heritage. The Roadkill team fronted a blown big block-powered Impala for the challenge and the MCM team customised a bugeye WRX into a ute that they dubbed the ‘Subarute’. The jury is out as to whether or not the modifications were safe, let alone legal, and how the almighty chop affected the vehicle’s handling and chassis dynamics, but it was certainly unique.

STUART APPLEBY’S BMW UTE

The lads at Street Machine did a deep dive on Aussie Pro Golfer Stuart Appleby’s amazing custom BMW M5 based ute built by legendary rod shop Southern Rod and Custom. The work is just as good as you’d expect, and far from simply whacking a tray where the rear seats should be, Southern Rod and Custom fully re-engineered the entire vehicle under the skin to make it perform just as good as it looks. The M-enhanced 5L V8 engine makes the Bimmer hay hauler our kind of rig - can’t you just see Appleby blowing some steam off and whipping some doughnuts in the dust at Deni with it?!

FERRARI 412 UTE

Built in 2013 for the TV show Ultimate Wheels, this Ferrari 412 ute might be the only prancing-horse branded ute in the world! Really leaning in to the bogan image of a Ferrari ute, the builders fitted a small block Chevy engine complete with bug catcher through the bonnet, but swung the style pendulum back the other way by lining the ‘tray’ with teak wood. They built it, so you don’t have to. 

VK COMMODORE UTE

Long before the Commodore range boasted a commercial vehicle (introduced in the VN era with the VG Commodore), Holden engineered were reportedly toying with adding a ute to the range as early as the mid-80s. Concept sketches around the time of the VH Commodore show renderings of a wellside as well as a tray back version of a VK-fronted Commodore ute. It was obviously a stillborn from the factory, but that hasn’t stopped punters recreating their own first generation Commodore utes, including this Harrop-blown Blue Meanie-styled VK ute featured by the team at Street Machine.