HAIL THE UTE

I LOVE utes; they are one of the greatest inventions to come out of Australia.

Following World War I was the Great Depression. The average farming family couldn’t afford to own both a truck and a comfortable passenger vehicle. Famously, an Australian farmer’s wife wrote a letter to Ford Australia asking why they hadn’t made a vehicle that could comfortably take the family to church on Sunday and then take the pigs to market Monday. The rest is history. A young Lewis Bandt was assigned the job of designing what Henry Ford (who wasn’t a supporter of the idea) called the ‘Kangaroo Chaser’. GM-H and Dodge followed suit very soon afterwards. The rest of the world had their pick-ups, lorries and deliveries. We had our utes.

The ute’s passenger-car suspension meant they were capable of passenger-car performance – particularly during the muscle car period. An HG Holden ute with a 308 or an XY Falcon ute with a 351 had proper sportscar performance, yet you could throw your dirt bike or surfboards in the back.

Unfortunately, with the increasing popularity of dual-cabs and four-wheel-drives replacing our traditional utility on the road, the term ‘ute’ has been opened up to include pretty much anything that has a tray and is smaller than a heavy commercial vehicle. I think this is a shame, as I believe we do this icon an injustice when we use the ‘ute’ moniker to describe what are effectively Asian-built pick-ups derived from a US template. The ute should be a great source of pride in Aussie ingenuity. Sadly, with the demise of the Australian automotive industry, the Aussie ute as we know it will never exist again.

Chris Anscombe, email