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It’s hard to talk about the spirit of Australian motoring without mentioning the ute as one of the first things that comes to your mind.
The humble pick-up that once remained exclusively at work sites across the country has now become a mainstay for school pick-ups, grocery runs, and any sporting event.
And while more brands such as Chery, Kia and BYD have acquiesced to the market’s appetite for dual-cab utes by fielding new products, this one BMW owner has Aussie enthusiasts beaming with national pride following this nod to Holden and the country.
In a 25 April 2026 interview with car content creator Magnacars, US custom automotive business owner Cannan showcased his 2022 BMW M4 G82 that he converted into a ute.
The car originally started its life as a brand-new luxury sedan, which retailed for $149,900 before on-road costs in 2022, and was converted in six weeks in-house prior to the SEMA show that year.
While the car has attracted praise from the vast online car community, the owner said the name for his custom ute generated a mixed reaction online.
“I get a lot of love and hate because of the name M4LOO [Maloo], which means Thunder in the Aboriginal Australian language,” Cannan said.
It's impossible to see the word Maloo without associating it with the HSV nameplate's own significant contribution to Australian motoring history.
In 2025, an HSV GTSR W1 Maloo supercharged V8 ute – of which only four examples were ever built – broke auction records, after it sold for $1.2 million, the highest price for a road-going Holden.
While the HSV Maloo's rear-wheel-drive system made it a cult classic, the M4 ute retains the donor’s 3.0-litre twin-turbo inline-six, all-wheel-drive system paired with an eight-speed automatic. It distributes 375kW/650Nm to all four wheels.
The custom BMW ute found favour among social media users, particularly Australians who weren't shy in expressing their love of the honorary icon.
A YouTuber user commented, “Send a bulk order to Australia this second”, while another remarked, “I thought this was in Australia until I saw the Texas plates”.
“This is the most Aussie thing I’ve ever seen,” another commenter said. Despite its Australian nod, the owner said the inspiration stemmed from his childhood.
“It’s always been on my bucket list to do a ute. I grew up in Germany, and I saw the original E30 ute, and I always wanted a ute, so that’s what happened,” he told Magnacars.
He is, of course, referring to the one-off 1986 E30 pick-up truck that BMW used as an internal transporter at the M’s Garching factory.
The BMW E30 pick-up – derived from the M3 convertible – was powered by a scaled-down version of the 2.0-litre S14 engine with a claimed 141kW/210Nm.
The business owner explained the conversion process, which required him to completely cut and restructure the sedan’s rear section.
“The original bed was made of wood for the prototype; we sprayed it black for SEMA. And then after that, we cast and made a mould of it. Everything under it is framing metal, all these lines of metal, and tubing.
“The C-pillar is reinforced, so when people say you need a [roll] cage, you don’t need a cage because the C-pillar is the cage. " It's reinforced more than what BMW does with just the metal sheets,” he said.
Cannan – who’s taken the custom ute to different shows since he built it – added his business can convert “any car” into a ute, though the process won’t be cheap.
"We had people asking [if we do conversions], we would charge about $50K to do the whole thing. I don’t want to rush it again, doing it in six weeks, so if they give us time, about three to four months, we can make it," he said.
While it's unclear where the car is currently, the custom ute was listed for sale on the business owner's Instagram page earlier this year at USD$145,000 (approximately AUD$200,629).
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
