What you do when you have too much money.

http://www.m5ute.com/index.htm

2/18/2008 12:14:54 AM

Doesn't get much uglier than that.

2/18/2008 12:35:10 AM

retarded

2/18/2008 12:36:25 AM

silly australians. the ute is definitely the aussie equivalent of a trar, except wildly more popular and socially accepted. it's like a whole country full of rednecks with funny accents.

all jokes aside, you have to admire the work that's been done despite your opinion of it.

2/18/2008 12:56:55 AM

Maybe I'm too much of a redneck, because I like it.

2/18/2008 3:25:49 AM

Quote :

"whole country full of rednecks with funny accents"

sydney and melbourne are badass- haven't found any rednecks. I'll concede the rest of the country, having never visited.

2/18/2008 5:36:10 AM

awful

2/18/2008 6:01:15 AM

Quote :

"all jokes aside, you have to admire the work that's been done despite your opinion of it."

its retarded regardless of the work

it will handle like a fucking pickup now without any weight on the back

2/18/2008 8:28:32 AM

You don't know that.
The m5 is unibody so i wouldn't be surprised if there is a frame back there now and or that steel is pretty heavy gauge to make sure the thing doesn't fold in half. What i'm saying is there is a chance there is still a lot of weight back there.

I'm not saying it will handle well but i am saying you can speculate both ways but until you know maybe you should stfu ?

2/18/2008 9:33:17 AM

so precision engineering vs. shade tree redneck

hmmm....

im thinking its going to handle like shit

2/18/2008 11:28:45 AM

ever think to consider that an equivalent weight balance was part of the design? I myself would be shooting for a rear bias near that of an unloaded car.

2/18/2008 12:24:40 PM

they sure didn't leave much room to slide the seat back

2/18/2008 12:29:28 PM

Does that really look like a shade tree job to you ?? Really ?

2/18/2008 12:42:29 PM

Those shop floors are clean enough to lick food off of. The car looks clean and practical.

2/18/2008 12:57:05 PM

I'd be willing to bet it's being built as a show car, not a track toy or daily driver... Hence, I doubt he gives a shit if the handling is not as good as it once was.

2/18/2008 1:05:25 PM

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.

2/18/2008 1:47:40 PM

Once the trigger had been pulled in my mind to get this underway it was time to list all the things, visual or functional that I wanted the ute to have.
The ute of comparison for the build was a GM product out of the Australian division, General Motors Holden, the SS ute. It's dimensions are a bit bigger in width and length then the M5, but the M5's overhangs were shorter for better balance and handling.

In the initial discussions with Shane at SRC, we wanted the ute to have some styling changes that would stand it apart from any normal M5. I didn't think that was going to be too much of a problem.
It needed to be very much a ute, but very recognizable as a BMW. The overall look/finish/styling needed to be a marriage of the Australian ute but with German quality and build finish.

On the engine front the 4.9 (5 liter) V8 M5 engine makes about 400-420hp now (Powerchip ECU program) and with time permitting VF in the USA will have a supercharger kit out for the M5 by late 07. Their plans are for it to run low boost 6lb and get about 600hp from a stock engine with stock headers (a weak point on a stock M5 engine) and with a stock exhaust. I plan on getting some Super Sprint headers, but not yet decided on what aftermarket exhaust I'll end up running out back. With a good set of SuperSprint headers and some free flowing cats and exhaust 600hp+ will be an easy safe target.

On the wheel front we decided that a staggered look would be the best option visually. A 19'' front and a 20'' rear would give the effect I wanted. The M5 normally came stock with 18'' rims. We wanted to gain some track width in the rear and did so with ease, but it was going to be a bit tricky to go bigger then 305/25/20 in the rear. I wasn't comfortable that a 25 series tyre would have enough side wall flex to make the ride on our Australian roads that much fun. It was decided that my connections with Bridgestone would pull me back to a more sedate 275/30/20. I would gain some side wall flex with the 30 profile and increase the total height of the tyre/wheel by about 25mm (1") so filling the guards a bit more. Some research on the M5 forum found that I could run 265mm fronts V's the OEM 245mm. The M5 is a heavy car 1,800kg (4,000lb) so that extra 20mm up front would be handy for cornering and braking traction.

The ride height was indeed a big consideration with what wheel/tyres I would end up running. I wanted the ute to have a ride height to be at about 640mm-650mm (25.25'' - 25.60) That was the same height that my US M5 was running but with 19" on all corners. This number was measured from the top of each wheel arch down to the ground. But with the bigger total height of the 275/30/20, 650mm+ might be more on the cars then 640mm all round.

Some external tweaks we wanted was to delete the door strips all the way around the car. This would freshen up the newness of the styling and pull the car forward 5-10 years in it's looks. We wanted to delete the door handles as well, this "shaved" look would go well with the super smooth finish with the panels being finished in black PPG paint.

Just adding a ute look to the rear half of the M5 could have been done, but Shane felt that the chassis needed a bit more tub length for the correct look. The final amount that we agreed upon that looked best for the extension was 125mm (5'') This extension was to be just in front of what is would normally have been the front edge of the back seat. The extension would give the ute a lower stance visually, so a bonus. The sails that would be needed to tie the roof to the tub would flow better with this extra length. The tub section in this extended form would actually be more ute like in size now. Not sure on how the balance will be in the final fit, but the M5 in stock form has a perfect 50/50 weight distribution, fingers crossed that we can keep it close and maybe loose some total weight as well.

We decided that the rear panels and rear bumper off a 5 series touring wagon would be ideal for a transplant for the ute. The reason the wagon parts seemed to be the right direction to go was that we needed a rear gate to swing down like a traditional ute. The rear light assembly on a "touring" was perfect, it has vertical sides so a gate would swing down perfectly.

We wanted the look (when viewing into the tub) for it to have traditional styling, but of a very high quality.
Initial measurements of the wheel wells on the M5 when stripped down showed that they were very close together. We pondered on how to make the suspension towers further apart, but we decided that could get very tricky when you start playing with the great handling of the M5. It wasn't worth going to the expense and potential hassle of killing the balance of the car over a few inches in well width so the hook up points stayed stock in width. No way could we keep the OEM top hook up points of the suspension as high as the OEM numbers were, they had to come down with the help of Koni gear. In the end they came down about 100mm (4") to bring the wells lower in to what would be the tub and it's walls.

The floor needed to have the usual ribs running along it, but maybe with some stainless steel strips on top of each rib to protect the paint and add some finish to the inside of the tub, this isn't totally decided on how it will turn out yet.

A custom one off rear strut brace will be made out of alloy for the two towers in the tub. This would be a great functional feature as well as visual one.

The fuel filler was to be removed from it's usual outer panel location on the outside wall to a new location on the inside wall of the tub.

I felt that some carbon fibre treatments would be a good touch in the right places as well. The rear cover for the tub would be great in carbon. This is still a goal of mine, but finding and making one that functions perfectly that isn't too costly is going to be tricky. A reduction in weight with some carbon parts is a good idea, but how much could be saved I don't know yet. An all carbon GTR hood from Vorsteiner was on the "to buy list"
This wasn't a one off hood, but there were enough M5 owners around the world wanting to customize their cars for Vorsteiner's E39 GTR hood to go into production. The idea of doing a carbon roof as well was thrown around and this will tie in to the option of having a one off rear lid being made to.

Knowing that the rear of the car has had some serious surgery and that all of the wiring needed to be moved and tracked to new location had us needing a storage compartment in the tub of some kind. What seemed to be the best option was to make use of what would have been the rear seat in the M5 sedan as a compartment for service and access. The new floor height was up enough from the old back seat that a decent compartment could be made. This would be a great location the CD stacker/Nav unit, fuses and so on that used to be in the trunk. What was normally the section for the air compressor in the floor of the trunk + a can of the tyre goo, would make a general storage area to keep small things off the floor.

The interior will have some custom adjustments as well. Not 100% sure on what will be the final fit internally for the ute, but some custom seats are on the cards and maybe some treatments to trim. I need to see what fits the best before a decision is made on seats.

Some adjustments to the sounds system will be a go, but I'd rather spend a bit more time/money on making the ute's engine sound be what I listen to.

So there you have the crux of what ideas have been floating around for the builds direction. I'm sure other things will evolve in the final part of the ute's build, but there's enough work for the guys at SRC to have it done by the end of Sept 07.

2/18/2008 1:48:51 PM

With this type of custom work there's going to be seen and not foreseen issues that pop up before and during the build.
One of the initial ones was actually getting our heads around how to actually pull this off with the overall concept of it looking good and having a very high build quality. There was no way to use past experience with no others having done this type of work to an M5, so very much unchartered waters for myself and SRC team.
Grasping the concept of cutting an 2003 M5 in half was a bit out there for sure, but making sure that the car was very "straight" when put back together was imperative. Shane knew that he had to use an existing jig that he had in the shop for the M5 to be torn apart, then put back together for perfect alignment on the rejoin. Getting that done successfully was a great step for the project kicking off.

Now that the ute was back together with an extra 125mm (5") in the waist section it was time to see how the wider rear fender width that we wanted was going to actually fit. We knew that the wagons rear quarters would bulge out more then the M5's, but how much was a mystery we didn't really know. Normally a car actually gets narrower once it flows past the mid section of the car for better aerodynamic flow, but we had to still push the rear width out about 25-37mm (1" - 1.5") per side. This had to be 100% perfect as the effect I wanted from the shaved sides was a mirror look when painted.

One thing that seems to pop up in many custom shops, is staff leaving right when there needs to be all hands on deck. Some staff issues at SRC kept the guys left there taking on a bit more then they would have envisioned with more than one project running.

One slightly unexpected hurdle was getting the roof and the sails to work together to flow down to the tub. This wasn't really predicted in the early stages as being too big an issue, but became an issue once Shane got to see how if it was done wrong, would kill the look of the ute in a flash. The normal M5 ute roof is about twice as long once it was cut and the roof needed to roll down a bit more on the back edge for better visual flow. Once the roof had the right shape, Shane spent many hours trying different options for the sails so he could get the right look that pulls the two halves together.

How we were going to tackle the rear suspension was an issue in the early stages of our discussions. Once it was established that the rear shock towers were way to tall and bulky, there needed to be some careful calculation on what we could do that would keep the car/ute's factory handling but getting a better set up for the rear end.

It was not an easy area to do major surgery as so many things tie into that area of the ute, so it was important to make this area very strong. From the original position it's now 100mm (4") lower then OEM hook up point.
Keeping the suspension towers on the same angle as stock was very important in handling.

The biggest hurdle so far (Shane's opinion) was the tail gate. He spent a few weeks scratching his head on how to get one to look good and function well. We had some issues that normal ute's don't have. Normal have flat doors on both sides so two hinges can swing the back door down with ease. What we had was a curve on the outside of the gate, so a normal two hinge set up couldn't work. Finally Shane decided that his single hinge in the center of the gate would be best. From there it would rotate down and back up locked with ease on that one hinge.

2/18/2008 1:50:32 PM

Quote :

"Does that really look like a shade tree job to you ?? Really ?"

it looks like a turd to me

2/18/2008 3:37:28 PM

just fly over there, meet the shop owner, tell him his creation is retarded, and spare us your bitching.

I think it's interesting, but I also think it's ugly.

[Edited on February 18, 2008 at 4:36 PM. Reason : ]

2/18/2008 4:34:51 PM

Quote :

"Maybe I'm too much of a redneck, because I like it"

i love el caminos and will have one someday

2/19/2008 12:24:25 PM

I like it too, but it needs 4wheel drive and mud tires.

2/19/2008 1:15:00 PM

Back in '03, I went to a BMW training class in Atlanta (it was 'Intro to E65/6 I believe). Anyways, another tech who worked at one of the ATL BMW dealers had a E39 Touring......with a complete E39 M5 drivetrain swap. He went as far as to get the rear subfloor section from the E39 M5 also......to eliminate the spare and accomodate the exhaust. Full interior as well, and at the time only needs a couple pieces of trim for the rear to make the car complete. It was NASTY.........

2/19/2008 6:50:18 PM