BMW Guys Will Literally Build a Twin-Turbo Hybrid V12 6x6 Pickup Before Buying an F-150
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What do you do if you need a truck but absolutely love '90s BMWs? You make one out of an E38-generation BMW 7 Series, of course. That's exactly what Brian Lutton of Florida did when he turned an old 750i into a ute—except, it wasn't enough. He needed lots of towing capacity, so he's building another one, this time with a fully functioning 6×6 setup running a Frankenstein hybrid twin-turbo V12 powertrain.
Lutton, who chatted with The Drive about the build, lives in Florida but went to college in Michigan, so he wanted something to tow project cars back and forth. He chopped an E38 7 Series from the B-pillar back, gave it a pickup bed, and his BMW ute was born. It had a stock BMW engine, a stock five-speed automatic transmission, and was originally rear-wheel drive. The 'only' modifications were chassis bracing to handle towing, air suspension, and a transmission cooler. The engine had 270,000 miles on it and was still capable of towing another 7 Series on a trailer. According to Lutton, it handled towing comparably to a half-ton pickup. Brian Lutton
However, it couldn't handle towing two cars at once, so he needed to make a more extreme tow vehicle while retaining a similar formula to his original 7 Series ute. He bought another clean 7 Series as the basis of the project, chopped off its trunk, and then cut the bed off the first ute, which came with its rear axle. He welded those together and created a four-door luxury sedan with dual rear axles. That was a process in itself, but it was really just the beginning of this mad scientist's creation.
The fun started once everything was welded together. Under the hood is a BMW M73 5.4-liter V12, which he slapped two turbochargers onto. He threw out the stock five-speed ZF automatic and replaced it with the eight-speed ZF auto and xDrive system from a 2018 BMW X5 diesel, making it four-wheel drive. The front subframe and differential are from a 2003 BMW X5, but modified to fit. The rear differential is a limited-slip unit from an E60-generation BMW M5, which is mounted to a stock E38 subframe. Brian Lutton
The build is currently a 4×6 7 Series pickup, as the rearmost axle isn't powered. However, it will be soon. Lutton has already fitted the final axle with a rear electric motor taken from a Tesla Model 3, and is working on getting a BMW i3 battery pack to power it. A CANTCU controller handles the transmission and rear differential, and Lutton has a rotary dial that can control the all-wheel drive system's lockup from zero to 100%. Under normal circumstances, the Tesla motor will just work with whichever gear the transmission is in: so if it's in drive or reverse, the electric motor will be, too. Lutton also says the EV motor can be put in either park, reverse, neutral, or drive independently of the transmission, meaning the car can work as a pure EV, too. Supposedly, he can set it to a regen mode, letting it drag while the car is in 4×6 mode and put energy back into the battery. Regenerative braking should reduce the braking load on the discs while towing a trailer, too.
The project isn't done, according to Lutton, as there's much battery and motor calibration yet to be completed, as well as body work. It looks pretty gnarly at the moment, but that's to be expected given the extreme nature of the build. Still, it's mostly functional, and Lutton already has one of the wildest, most fascinating project cars I've seen in ages. When it's finally complete, it will probably be safe to say that he has the only V12, hybrid, four-door, 6×6, BMW-ish ute in the world.
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Nico DeMattia is a staff writer at The Drive. He started writing about cars on his own blog to express his opinions when no one else would publish them back in 2015, and eventually turned it into a full-time career.
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