American YouTube star Michael Pick has singlehandedly built the first BMW i3 ute by taking a run-down model that wouldn’t even start and turning it into a masterfully constructed workhorse with a range of more than 540km – and all on a strict budget.

Pick started out with a problem: he was after a budget hauler, but as he put it in the YouTube video detailing the transformation, “There’s no small, affordable pickup truck you can buy right now.”

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He set himself two rules with the build: it couldn’t cost more than US$10,000 (A$14,165) and the range of the finished product had to exceed 300 miles (483km). He began by buying a poorly maintained example of the range-extender version of the i3 for about $8200, then he got down to work.

First, the Beemer wouldn’t even switch on, let alone start. The 12-volt battery was missing, and once that was replaced, he was able to use the tiny two-cylinder engine to get the main battery up to one per cent. He then cleaned and detailed the car inside and out before starting the real surgery.

“Since I’m about to cut through the roof and the entire back of the car, I needed to know what was hiding beneath everything,” he explained as the clip showed him painstakingly taking the interior apart and disconnecting equipment.

First he cut the hatch off, being careful not to slice through airbags, and precisely marking out the alterations because “I wanted the finished truck to follow the original BMW body lines instead of looking like I attacked it with a circular saw.”

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Pick then cut backwards, leaving the door panel and electric charge point intact. He used a laser level to mark the cut lines in the interior, ditched the rear seats and waterproofed the area housing the BMW iDrive head unit.

He used the aluminium supports inside carbon-fibre sections of the body weight as points to weld, bolt and epoxy new steel crossmembers to the i3, and had to make the entire ute bed removable to ensure access to the range-extender engine.

Pick used plywood to construct the bed, coated it with painted on, waterproof bedliner, used the window from an RV for rear visibility, and 3D-printed custom caps to cover the roof members he’d cut. And just for good measure, he installed a new, larger touchscreen and leather-coated steering wheel.

After checking he’d beaten his range target, a trip to a hardware store to get some lumber followed, with the i3 working a treat. As for that sub-$11,500 cost, we think it might blow out a bit if he took his labour into account.

The last word goes to Pick, who told viewers, “Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but that’s not really the point. You don’t always have to wait for someone else to come up with a solution. Sometimes you can build your own.”