Meet the other BMW with a bed: Stuart Appleby’s M5 Ute

Filed under: Aftermarket, Performance, Truck, BMW, Australia, Celebrities, Luxury

Stuart Appleby’s BMW M5 Ute – Click above for high-res image gallery

Turns out the BMW M3 pickup we showed you yesterday isn’t the first BMW to be turned into a sport pickup. Back in 2008, PGA Tour golfer Stuart Appleby had his E39 BMW M5 turned into a ute by Australian custom shop Southern Rod.

Appleby has a deep-seated love of utes from his childhood on an Australian dairy farm, and has loved M cars since he first laid eyes on them. He also has a history of tearing into his rides, trying to squeeze each extra pony from them. His first M5 hadn’t gone 4,500 miles before the engine was torn down and pushed to 460 horsepower.

The build for this ute was finished in October 2008, and used an undamaged M5 to make a factory-looking build as easy as possible. The build took months and left no stone unturned making sure the car retained its original stiffness and functioned like a normal Ute.

We dig the finished product, and we dig that Appleby doesn’t care what people think of it. Along the way, the car got a sport suspension to go along with the 460-horsepower engine, thanks to a chip, headers and exhaust.

UPDATE: Appleby originally created a thread about his M5 ute on the m5board.com forums before launching his official M5Ute.com website.

Gallery: Stuart Appleby’s M5 Ute