Mark Smith thinks it's only a matter of time before his newest creations will be seen buzzing around town.

“You’ll soon be seeing a lot of little funny trucks driving around here,” said Smith.

At Smyth Performance, located on Kendrick Road in Wareham, a crew of four (including Smith, the owner) are in the process of putting the finishing touches on the “Ute,” a kit car they’ve designed that takes older model Volkswagen Jettas and Golfs and breathes new life into them as pickup trucks.

Smith said that since posting a finished version of the Ute on Facebook, he estimates that over 6 million people have been exposed to their product. It’s been featured in magazines such as in Mini Truckin’, Motor Trend, and Truck Trend in the last few weeks, and since word started getting out, Smith said he’s received about 150 orders for the Ute kits.

“I'm just surprised at the sales this early—with the power of Facebook, the entire world got to see it,” said Smith, who started the business about four years ago after selling his share of Factory Five Racing to his brother Dave. Factory Five is another Wareham company that builds and sells kit cars.

Smith said Factory Five is geared more towards race cars, while the focus at Smyth Performance is directed more towards people who want to modify their own cars without having to spend years doing it.

“We simplified it so it was a much faster project—a lot of guys don’t have two years to put into building a car,” said Smith. “These cars are build-able in weeks or days, not years. This Ute is a weekend job for a car guy. That’s the key. Instead of a $50,000 race car, you can build a pickup for around $3,500.”

Mike Gallant, the engineer for Smyth Performance, said they chose Jettas and Golf models from 1999 to 2004 because they’re easy to work on and fairly reliable. He said that anyone, even those without a lot of experience working on cars, can can buy a kit from Smyth Performance and turn their Volkswagen into a pickup truck in a short amount of time. All it takes is a Sawzall or a circular saw, some basic tools, the kit, manual, and accompanying video from Smyth, and you’re on your way to building your very own, fuel-efficient pickup truck.

“It’s really an ideal car to carry lighter loads and lumber up to a certain length,” said Gallant, adding that a diesel version of the car can get up to 50 miles per gallon, and that the engine can be modified to get up to around 300 horsepower. “It looks like a pickup truck, but it handles like a Porsche Boxster.”

Smith said that unlike most kit cars, the Ute comes equipped with things like stereos, air conditioning, and other accessories that come stock with most personal vehicles because you’re simply taking an already-functioning Volkswagen and modifying the body of the vehicle.

“Rather than a bare bones race car, this one can actually be driven around on a daily basis,” he said.

Currently, the crew at Smyth Performance is taking molds and tweaking the Ute for mass production, and they expect to start shipping the kits in the next few months. Their first creation, the diesel TDI/1.8T/VR6 VW Jetta based mid-engine kit car, came out last year.

“We’re making car parts from scratch and putting them into production pieces,” said Casey Jardin, one of the two metal fabricators/fiber glass molders working on the Ute for Smyth Performance.

Smith said that part of their goal as a business is to focus on going green, both because of the increased fuel efficiency and because they’re taking older cars and breathing new life into them.

“You’re building a car that’s at the end of it’s normal life anyways,” said Smith, adding that he hopes they’ll sell somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 of the kits per year once the entire process is complete.