This 2009 Dodge Charger Ute Conversion Has A 392ci Hemi And A Proper Manual Transmission

“I kept talking about doing it,” Troy Azmoon of San Diego, California recalls. “And finally one of my friends was just like, ‘Stop talking about it and do it.’ So I kinda just dove in and made it happen.”

A true labor of love, he says that it took more than 1,200 man-hours to create his vision for the perfect modern Mopar muscle car. The effort ultimately required components from three different vehicles to bring it to life, along with a lot of patience.

Azmoon’s obsession with all things automotive dates back to the 289-powered ’65 Mustang that his father owned when Troy was a child. “I couldn’t go to sleep unless my dad put me in the back of that car. I associated the rumble of a V8 with comfort.” As a teenager, his interests also began to gravitate toward motorcycles, which he cites as his gateway drug into DIY projects.

“I appreciated the simplicity of them – it’s just an engine, a frame, and a couple of wheels. You can do a lot of the work on your own, and you don’t need a lift. At that point I just didn’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t really afford bigger hot rodding projects. Bikes gave me an opportunity to learn how to weld, work with fiberglass, and familiarize myself with wrenching in general.”

2009 Dodge Charger Smyth Conversion – Side Profile

A Charger SRT8 hood, halo LED headlights, and modern SRT wheels bolster the “OEM+” aesthetic that Azmoon sought to achieve with exterior. Photo: Bradley Iger

He turned his attention back to cars in his early 20s, embarking on builds that included a Nissan 240Z as well as a 1972 Chevrolet El Camino SS. But he soon realized that relying on old cars has a way of becoming a lifestyle all its own.

“I got tired of things going wrong that I thought shouldn’t go wrong. Like one morning I went to open the door on the El Camino, and the door handle just came off in my hand. Eventually I realized that my weekends had gone from going surfing and hanging out to searching junkyards for door handles.”

Those frustrations led him to ditch his project cars in favor of a 2011 Dodge Challenger R/T, while a Ford Ranger served as his beach cruiser and hauler. The two machines essentially covered all of the bases for Azmoon, yet he still wondered if there was a way to get the style, V8 rumble, and manual transmission of the Challenger, along with the utility of the Ranger, all in one vehicle.

“A few years later, I got a job where I ended up spending a lot of time in Australia, and I started seeing all of these modern El Camino-like vehicles like the Ford Falcon and the Holden Ute over there,” he says. “I thought the world had collectively stopped building stuff like that, but it was just that we didn’t have them over in the U.S. It was exactly what I wanted, but the cost of importing one was just obscene. The idea never really left my mind, though. Then, in 2019, I found out that Smyth Performance had released this new kit that was designed to turn a 2006-2010 Dodge Charger into a ute. And I was just like, ‘I think I’ve gotta do this.’”

Phase One

2009 Dodge Charger Smyth Conversion – Charger with sheetmetal cur off

Azmoon got the project started in earnest in 2020 when he acquired a 2009 Dodge Charger R/T from a seller in Orange County, California. Powered by a 368hp 5.7-liter Hemi V8 mated to a five-speed automatic transmission, the largely stock Charger had the rumble he was looking for, though perhaps not quite the oomph.

“I searched for a 2009 or 2010 Charger, specifically, because I knew the wiring system would support a 392ci Hemi V8 pretty easily if I wanted to upgrade down the road. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered that, although it could technically work, the state of California wasn’t down with the idea of just swapping in a 392.”

The first order of business was to chop off the back half of the Charger’s body and rebuild it in fiberglass and aluminum, a process that he documented on the build’s Instagram page.

2009 Dodge Charger Smyth Conversion – Bodywork phase

“I actually learned a lot about sculpting during this part of the build, which was something I didn’t expect,” he says. “I thought that taking on the project would make me a better mechanic, but I had no idea that I would be looking at shadows, using my non-dominant hand to feel things, and so on. That was probably my favorite aspect of the build. It gave me a new appreciation for the details. The smallest design tweaks can transform a vehicle from looking kind of plain to something really dynamic and alive.” He says that the Smyth Performance kit got him about 80% of the way to a full ute conversion, and the rest was up to him. “I probably put about 300 to 400 hours into the bodywork, when all was said and done.”

Serendipitously, the kit called for a Ford Ranger tail gate, which Azmoon sourced from his own fleet, while the tail lights come from a Dodge Caravan. “Just getting the tail lights right was probably a hundred of those hours,” he says.

Phase Two

Wrecked 2012 Dodge Challenger SRT8 donor vehicle

After completing the bodywork, Azmoon had ACM Auto Body & Paint in Escondido, California paint the newly-ute’d muscle car Destroyer Gray, a Dodge factory color first seen on production models in 2017. After that, he drove the Dodge as it was for a brief period before, as he explains it, basically starting over.

“I wanted to use it for a while and make sure it wasn’t structurally compromised, that it handled properly, and so on. It worked, and I really liked it. So I had these sort of long-term plans that I would eventually turn it into my dream car. That was going to mean putting in a bigger motor, big brakes, better suspension, etc, and that was basically going to require rebuilding the car. And I figured I’d get to all of that later on. But then one day I came out to use the car, and I discovered that the alternator had died. That 5.7-liter motor had about 140,000 miles on it by that point. And I found myself looking in the engine bay and thinking, ‘Do I really want to spend more money on a setup that I don’t really want?’ That’s when I decided to start hunting for a wrecked car with a 392 in it.”

The six-month-long search eventually led to a totaled 2012 Dodge Challenger SRT8 located in Washington state. The coupe had been unfortunate recipient of a major rear-end shunt, but was otherwise mechanically sound.

2009 Dodge Charger Smyth Conversion – engine bay

“I knew this was going to be a big job, regardless,” he says. “And after talking with the Bureau of Automotive Repair, I realized that it was naïve of me to think that I could just put a 392 in this Charger and end up with a California-legal car out of it. I was going to have to graft in the entire electrical architecture from the Challenger in order for it to pass emissions testing. The scale of that job was a bit intimidating, so I reached out to a close friend of mine, Morgan Binkley, who is head of Maserati technical support in the U.S., and asked if he could help out with the project. We worked out a trade where, if he came down to help me out on a few weekends to help me sort out the electrical stuff, he could have his wedding at my house. So that’s exactly what we did.”

The team set to work swapping in the 392-cu.in. Gen III Hemi, which now sports a Mopar cold air intake, Fastman throttle body, a Magnaflow cat-back exhaust, and a Greene Racing tune. Azmoon estimates that the combination is good for about 500 horsepower and a similar amount of torque at the crank.

Along with the engine and electrical system, they also swapped in the Challenger’s entire front and rear suspension cradles, Bilstein adaptive dampers, four-piston Brembo brakes, limited slip rear end with 3.92 gears, and its Tremec six-speed manual transmission. The latter required the integration of the Challenger’s transmission tunnel in order to accommodate a gearbox that was never offered in the Charger, while the custom two-piece driveshaft was cobbled together from the front half of the Charger’s driveshaft and the back half of the Challenger’s.

2009 Dodge Charger Smyth Conversion – Bed, with tray raised up

To take the Charger’s handling performance a bit further, Azmoon also outfitted the chassis with SPC upper control arms up front, AAD control arms in the rear, BWoody Performance end links, custom subframe connectors, a Speedlogix front strut bar, and sway bars from Progressive Suspension. “It handles better as a truck than it ever did as a car,” he says with a laugh.

The interior, meanwhile, is a hodgepodge of Charger and Challenger hardware, along with a few custom touches. The seats come from the Challenger due to the fact that the Charger’s seats don’t fold down (and thus would prevent access to the back of the cab). The steering wheel, gauge cluster, and pistol-grip shifter come from the Challenger as well. “The frame of the dashboard is from the Challenger, and so are all of control systems, but the stuff sitting on top of that frame – most of the switchgear, bezels, etc – is from the Charger,” he says. The seats were treated to new hides from Manuel’s Upholstery in Escondido, California, who also installed the Charger’s new synthetic suede headliner.

2009 Dodge Charger Smyth Conversion – Interior

In person and behind the wheel, it’s clear where the hours of time on this three-year project were invested. Beyond the OE-like fit and finish of the bodywork and interior, there are no odd clunks, hiccups, Check Engine lights, or other issues to speak of, all of which could easily be forgiven considering the magnitude and complexity of this project. Even when it’s being put through its paces on the mountain roads of the Angeles National Forest, everything simply works.

“You can achieve anything quickly if you don’t care about quality,” he notes. “But when you do care about quality, the fastest way to get it done is to take your time.”

2009 Dodge Charger Smyth Conversion – Rear

In the months since the build was completed, Azmoon has used the ute for its originally-intended purpose – hauling surfboards and hustling down his favorite San Diego backroads. He says that although there are still a few small odds and ends he’d like to sort out, the build is essentially finished. Given the results, we couldn’t help but ask if he had any plans to take on another project in the future.

“I’d love to do a 240Z with a 280ZX turbo motor in it,” he says after a moment of contemplation. “But don’t tell my girlfriend about that!”