Ah, Australia. A land of chaos, spiders and shrimp on a Barbie (??). In the land of upside down, they have quite a different sort of automotive culture. Today, the spotlight is put on the UTE, which I’m sure most of you know. In short, a UTE is a truck with a bed but without the useful ground clearance or punchy motor, plus it looks like a car. The Aussies are weird, but what’s weirder is when Americans try to emulate the Aussies with their own twist. Think “Outback Steakhouse” kind of vibes, but with the new Beetle.

Yessir, what you see here is a new generation VW Beetle with a truck bed. Many things may be going though your mind right now, such as “why dost taint my eyes” and “do I strangely like this?”. I assure you, both of these are valid responses. You see, this here is a kit by Smyth Performance, which turns your new generation Beetle to an odd, kinda useful (more than stock) anomaly in the automotive time-space continuum. For the small sum of $3,500 pure, American dollars a kit with everything you need to do a Beetle conversion will show up at your house, hopefully not upside-down.

It sure is fun to see one of these goofball machines show up to your local cars and coffee, since they’re all custom kits for you to put together, there are usually some interesting differences between each one, but they’re all definitely unique.

But Wait, There’s More…

The company who manufactures these kits, Smyth Performance focus on the Beetle as their main and most popular kit, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more…

Meet the Smyth Performance full lineup, we’ll break each of these down from least absurd to most.

5. VW Jetta

Being another VW product, I can see this being in the inventory. Yes, still goofy and nonsensical, but still within reason for a pickup truck conversion. Think of it as a modern VW Rabbit. They’re all FWD, so no weird humps in the bed or anything that screws up the main selling point of this kit (hints for later).

4. Dodge Charger

Remember what I just said about FWD? Well throw it out the window, because now we’ve got a RWD, V8 Dodge to throw around the sideshow, picking up spectators in the back. Think of it as a modern El Camino. Honestly, it’s the closest thing to an Australian Super UTE any of these get.

3. Jeep Cherokee

Alright, now it’s starting to be a stretch. I GUESS you could consider yourself the owner of a Jeep Gladiator concept that never was, but with less bed space, awkward styling, and equally awkward driving dynamics (even worse than the real Gladiator). Perhaps, think of it as a modern Jeep Comanche. Of all the Jeep products to pick, Smyth picks the worst of the early 2000s to use as a base.

2. Subaru WRX

WHAT? WHY? At least all of the previous cars are fairly common, but a Hawkeye WRX? All of these blew up or flew off the road as a 17-year old Ken Block wannabe tried to be a rally driver in the middle of Winter. There aren’t any left to chop up into a pickup truck, yet here we are. Think of it as a modern Subaru Brat. At least it’s got SOME ride height to use the bed properly, even if it’s picking up pieces of your front bumper in the field you thought you could bomb across.

1. Audi S4

At this point, I applaud you for being so damn brave to take an expensive B6 chassis Audi S4 and lob the rear end off it. What is a main selling point of the S4? 4-doors, AWD and a V8. This removes 33.33% of the entire reason to own an S4, it’s far too low to actually use the bed anywhere one would use a bed. Think of it as a modern… You know what, I give up. It’s cool because it’s ridiculous, all of these are. Each of these conversions are so silly and fun, fuck it, I want one.