How Someone Cut Up A Dodge Charger Daytona To Create This Magnificent Ute

If you’re looking for a vehicle with the utility of a pickup truck but the form factor of a car, a ute is what you want. However, America never got modern utes. I suppose the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz come close, but not quite there. If you want a modern ute, you’re going to have to find a converted one. Thankfully, there’s a company that specializes in making kits for utes and when done well, they’re spectacular. This 2006 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T has a 5.7-liter Hemi V8 under the hood and a Smyth ute conversion.

I had this ute saved in my Marketplace list and was going to feature it on Friday’s edition of Mercedes’ Marketplace Madness. However, the more I looked at this thing, the more I fell in love. I’ve seen many ute conversions, but only a handful looked this good. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this looks like something Chrysler could have built from the factory. Just take a look at it from another angle:

And it’s not too crazy to think that an American automaker would build such a thing. Bob Lutz once tried to bring over Holden Utes to rebadge them as Pontiacs! That didn’t happen, but utes still have enough of a following in America that there are shops that specialize in importing ute parts from Australia and converting them into road-legal vehicles in the United States. You can get a Holden Ute from Left Hand Utes or if you’re feeling more adventurous, Smyth Performance sells ute kits for a variety of vehicles. [Editor’s Note: In college I helped create a rear-motor convertible VW Jetta using a Smyth kit. -DT].

From The Mind Behind Factory Five Racing

Smyth Performance is a Rhode Island-based manufacturer that specializes in kits to transform a variety of vehicles into utes. Currently, the site advertises ute kits for Volkswagen Beetles, Golfs, and Jettas, Dodge Chargers, Subaru Imprezas, Audi A4s, and even Jeep Grand Cherokees. Do you own a fifth-generation Volkswagen Jetta and wish it had a little more spice? Turn it into a pickup truck!

The story of Smyth begins in 1993 with Mark Smith. As the site explains, Smith was a chemist working on earning his MBA while working in the R&D division of Avery-Dennison, a company specializing in material sciences and packaging solutions. Working out of a small garage, Smith built a replica of a Shelby Cobra. Factory Five Racing was incorporated in 1995 and the site describes what happened from there:

As CEO of FFR he led the company from zero to 12 million in sales in an amazing 7 years. FFR became the largest component car manufacturer in the world and shipped over 10,000 kits to home car builders and professional shops over the next 25 years. Mark left the day to day management of FFR to Dave in 2002 after successfully defending FFR from the $10 million federal trademark case filed by Carroll Shelby and Ford. He later sold all of Factory Five to younger brother Dave in 2012. While the sale was progressing he joined forces with Harvard MBA and Marine Jay Rogers and co-founded Local Motors, Inc., which created a worldwide network of vehicle micro-factories and was based in Chandler, AZ. LM developed vehicles as outrageous as the “Transformers” featured Rally Fighter, the world’s first 3d printed car and an amazing autonomous shuttle.

After selling Factory Five, Smith opened up Smyth Performance. This time around, Smith wanted to focus on kits that used existing platforms and could be built by an enthusiast and driven daily. Smith apparently signed a non-compete clause with Factory Five that limited him to producing kits for Volkswagens. As a result, Smith set his sights on the MkIV Volkswagen Golf/Jetta platform that ran from 1999 to 2005 here in the United States. Smith saw a lot of opportunity in using the Golf/Jetta because it had a variety of engines ranging from a gasoline turbo four and a turbodiesel to the legendary VR6. Smith also liked the dashboard and floorpan.

Early Smyth cars were Golf/Jetta-based mid-engined sports cars and apparently, Smith specifically loved the idea of a mid-engine diesel sports car. Here’s an example of a Smyth GF3:

Smith would later refine his business. The mid-engine sports cars were gone and in their place were a variety of utes. The goal behind these is to create trucks that retain the same performance of the base vehicle:

The founding principle of Smyth Performance is to use as much of the modern automobile as possible in the build of a component car. Everything that makes the car work remains where it originally is supposed to be, we simply designed a complete system of panels and sub-frame assemblies to reinforce these already robust platforms and transform them into a beautifully strong small truck. The result cruises the highway like the sporty cars that they are, while allowing you to use a 5-6 foot bed(7 foot plus with the functional steel tailgate down) for your stuff that you carry with you in life. An extruded aluminum 1/8″ thick bed floor bolted to a thick “b” pillar plate support structure and thick aluminum bed walls, allow the street cruisers a beautiful custom finish while providing the strength and durability that make it a great work truck when needed.

Building A Dodge Charger Daytona Ute

Smyth Performance offers ute kits for 2005 to 2010 Chargers and 2011 to current Chargers. Yes, that means if you were feeling wild enough, you could make a Demon ute if you wanted to. Smith says that the Charger ute kit converts your sedan into a truck with a 6-foot bed that’s 5 feet wide outside of the wheel wells and space slopes down from 4 feet at the top of the wells to 3 feet at the bottom. The end result is a camper that Smyth Performance says should give you a payload of about 900 pounds.

Oh and you’ve probably already noticed this, but if you haven’t, yes, those are taillights from a Dodge Grand Caravan. If you haven’t quite figured out the rear window yet, that comes from a Chevrolet Colorado.

Looking through the build manual, there’s nothing that stands out as too difficult to handle. It seems to me that if you can turn a wrench and use a reciprocating saw, you can probably construct a Smyth kit. That said, I will say that it seems somewhat scary. I mean, you’re chopping up a perfectly good car. This is a project that you have to commit to because once you cut up your car, there’s no going back.

Flipping through the manual, aside from cutting, you’ll be working with bolts and rivets. Your cuts don’t have to be perfect, but close enough for the parts to fit. The manual also mentions some bonding involved if you aren’t as fond of rivets, but these kits do not require any welding.

As mentioned above. Your bed will be aluminum and 1/8-inch thick, surrounded by aluminum bed walls and an aluminum support structure for your car’s B-pillar. Of course, these cars aren’t crash tested and cutting up a unibody car’s supporting structure is typically bad news for strength. The kit does allow the car to retain functional airbags for the remaining seats. Some Smyth utes have gotten into crashes and they seem to do OK.

Smyth’s Dodge Charger ute kit currently costs $3,790. That’s on top of the price of the donor vehicle and of course, you have to build the thing and paint it when you’re done. If you don’t have that kind of time on your hands, you could just buy a ute built by someone else! That’s the proposition offered by this 2006 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T ute.

The Dodge Charger Daytona R/T made its debut at the 2006 Chicago Auto Show. Power comes from a 5.7-liter Hemi V8 making 350 HP and 390 lb-ft torque. That reaches the rear wheels through a five-speed automatic. Daytona R/T models got their own colors, badging, and a special interior with embroidered Daytona logos, body color-matched stitching, and more. In addition to the cosmetic changes, Daytona R/Ts also got a sport suspension.

It’s unclear if the sport suspension remains, but the factory 18-inch wheels were swapped out with 20-inch wheels from a Hellcat. I think they rock in this application. The seller notes that the powertrain has been left stock.

Really, this whole build works really well. It’s unclear who built this, but it looks like it could have rolled out of the factory this way. I also like how the donor car doesn’t appear to be worn down and on its last legs. There doesn’t appear to be any rust and it has 97,579 miles on its odometer. The seller, based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, wants $18,500 for it. Is that too much? I don’t know, but I bet it’s a ball to drive.

(Images: Seller, unless otherwise noted.)

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