The ute is more than just a car. The ute is a thing of beauty. The ute is part of our national identity. The ute is an expression of one's lifestyle. The ute makes boys into men.
The ute is Australian.
From the Ute Appreciation Society of Australia
Unlike a
pickup truck, which is classified as a truck, a
ute (short for
coupe utility) is a vehicle with the body and design of a
sedan but with a tray where the rear seats and boot usually are. Utes are largely an
Australian
phenomenon, other countries prefering the larger, truck based utility vehicles. Vehicles such as
Ford's
F100-
F350 are all classed as trucks. By comparison, Many popular sedans sold in Australia also had ute variants;
FJ Holdens,
Ford XA Falcons,
Valiant AP6s, right up to the Fords and Holdens being released today. For the most part, the best utes have the tray
moulded in as part of the body; the only exception being
one-tonners (utes designed to carry a
tonne in the tray), which will have a separate steel tray with sides, or a flat tray with no sides and wood flooring. Utes are good to play around in, as they are condusive to
car surfing, or 'playing around' in the other sense of the word as they are a staple of
Bachelor and Spinsters Balls.
The ute first came into being when a farmer's wife from
Gippsland in
Victoria wrote to
Ford Australia, saying "
Why don't you build people like us a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday, and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays?"".
Lewis Brandt, a twenty-two year old
engineer working for Ford designed a vehicle that could carry
passengers and
loads, and managed to
convince the company that there was a market for it. The
Ford Coupé Utility first rolled out of the factory in 1934, and since then there has almost always been a 'Ford ute'. Utes have evolved with cars, usually enjoying
production runs at or near the same time as the passenger vehicles. When Ford imported a car from the
United States for
Australianuse, a ute was often constructed out of the base specifically for this country, such as the
XK Falcon. It wasn't until the late 1950's that the United States got their own version of the Ute with 1957's
Ford Ranchero, and later the
Chevrolet El Camino.
Utes in Australia are still a big industry today - Ford are just about to release the
FPV Pursuit ute with a 32 valve 5.4 litre
V8,
fog lights,
rear spoiler and a
shitload of safety features.
Holden's new entrant is the
HSV Maloo R8 with a 5.7 litre V8 and all the other
Clubsport trimmings. So how much will these humble working vehicles set you back? Around $60,000 Australian. Oh yes. Of course, no painter or
brickie is going to be driving around in one of those, the popular utes for doing actual work are the
Toyota Hilux, the plain '
Holden Ute' and the
Ford XL Falcon. Most likely though, it'll be an old ute. Newer utes have a bit of a disturbing
trend among them though - hard covers on the tray instead of material. This feature indicates that the utes are not being marketed as work vehicles at all, rather as coupes for people who want a lighter car. The worst part about it all is; Where does the dog sit?
Special mention goes to the
Uteopia, winner of
Queensland's best ute for a few years now. A
Toyota Supra and a Hilux rear that took four hundred hours of welding. Inside it has a 24 valve six cylinder engine with twin turbochargers that generates about three hundred
horsepower. Ironic that an Australian award given to an Australian style of car is won with
Japanese technology.