We go to a lot of shows a year.  The slammed look is popular, most presumably because it makes a car look more performance oriented.  I mean, in general full blown race cars are very close to the ground.  That keeps a lower center of gravity and ensures the least amount of airflow is allowed underneath (thus reducing lift).  The interesting part about stancing out a car is that, while it might actually handle better on a race track if you know what you are doing and your alignment is good, on public streets the utility of this is nearly non-existent, and even extremely inconvenient depending on your environment.  I’ve noticed an interesting trend in European car shows over the years that people are looking for something different.  This almost always involves a sawzall and a MIG welder, we’ve all see Monster Garage. Chopped Euros, a Ute if you will.

In America the Ford Ranchero saw moderate popularity, persuading Chevrolet to birth the El Camino, a car/truck thing that has come to represent how far we have come in styling.  From Germany, we got the VW Rabbit pickup truck (AKA Caddy), but let’s be honest that never really fully caught on.  Now of course, those unusual little pick’m’up Rabbits are hugely popular among the show scene.  Extra scene points for diesel, because spark plugs are almost a Faux Pas at this point.

In Australia several cars have been available pre-chopped for quite some time, forgoing the mundane trunk (boot) for a more utilitarian pickup truck bed.  Specifically called “Utes”, they are kind of the mullet of sports cars.  You can lay down miles of burned rubber and make more donuts than Krispy Kreme, but you can also toss a few hay bails in the back if the need were to so arise.  There have been numerous Aussie-only Utes from Chrysler, Suzuki, Proton, Ford, Vauxhaull, Holden.  With names like Brumby and Jumbuck, the target market is pretty obvious. What is most interesting is seeing cars that never started out as the neighborhood’s tailgate king, transformed with custom craft that reflects the owner’s personal touch in every rivet and seal.

Making appearances at the 2016 Swedish Car Day and 2014 Carlisle, this Volvo 850R is complete with rally light laden roll bar. It handily demonstrates one of the better ute-ification jobs we’ve seen.  All of the weld seams are smooth and the enlarged B-pillar looks stock.  The story to get this car legal in New York must have been quite a process, but we’re glad they did it.  If anyone knows more about this vehicle please let me know and I can link it in here.

At the 2014 SOC another chunk of Swedish metal went under the knife, this time a Saab 99 sporting a very nicely fitting tonneau cover.  I believe this was even a turbo model, because when you want to make a tiny pickup truck, you gotta turbo.  For some reason Saab’s tend to often get Utted (I am making that verb up).  It might be because of Saab owner’s tendency to be utilitarian, thrifty, and also a little funny.

New England Dustoff is always a great opportunity to see what is new and fresh in the Dub scene every year, and even through rain at Thompson in 2015 we were able to get a heavy dose of Volkswagen Audi Group’s highly modified offerings that would be hitting the show scene that year.  Aired out, wrapped, custom stitched…there were some very nicely put together show cars at the event (including Banchwerks’s two rally boys with their MK3 rally toys).  And then we spotted it, a MK4 Jetta that had gotten the Ute treatment.  Very custom, as you can tell a lot of attention to detail went into fitting the rear portion of the car.  Check out that B pillar with the window in it, classy.

On April fools day, BMW pulled the cover off their new big thing, an E90 chassis 3-series pickup that would go into production, and they actually built one!  Of course it was only a joke, but the car was actually used for running internal errands for the company, we assume naturally hauling around BMW parts (that’s what we would do with it).  Oh yea, it also ended up at the Nurburgring because why not.  The Germans of course proving that their sense of humor is probably the best kind.  Confusing, but humble.  A little while later, this showed up.  It’s an M3 that has substantially more trunk space than when it initially left Munich.  The rhino lining is a great touch, read more about this particular build here.  Pretty clever.

So if you have a car lying around that you don’t know what to do with, and your Uncle Jimmy has a sawzall and an arc welder in his garage, what are you waiting for?  Tomorrow’s coolest custom whip is only a hack and a slash away.  Plus, when you show up with a pair of motorcycles in the back of your Volvo 240, you’ll pretty much be undisputed coolest kid at the show.