Utes and the future
As I rolled up beside a shiny new Mazda BT- 50 ute at the lights the other day it took a smile and wave – which my passenger picked up first – from the bloke driving it before I cottoned on to the fact that we were driving identical ( 2018 Special Edition) models. When I was a car-mad kid growing up in Gore it was rare to ever see the same ( A30 Austin, Triumph Herald station wagon or Mk 1 Ford Cortina) car my parents owned, let alone one the exact same spec, model and year. Even now, my son and/ or daughter will exchange a high-five if we see a Camry the same year (1990) let alone colour as our well-used and loved ‘ kids’ car.’ The success story of the modern turbodiesel double cab ute just goes on and on though, with absolutely no sign of stopping. OK, the Mazda BT- 50 is not quite up there in the top-seller stakes with its ‘ brother from another mother’ Ford Ranger, or Toyota’s ubiquitous Hilux, but last year 2218 ( BT- 50s) were registered, and in March this year ( the latest figures to hand) 159 were purchased for a four percent share of the total market. To fully understand the Kiwi love affair with the once humble TD DC ( turbo-diesel, double cab) ute you really have to look at the number sold last year. Ford sold 9420 Ranger in 2017 for an 18 percent share of the ‘ light commercial sector.’ Toyota was not far behind with 8106 sales for a 16 percent share, then Holden ( 4489/ nine percent), Mitsubishi ( 4070/ eight percent), Nissan ( 3055/ six percent), Isuzu ( 2506/ two percent), Mazda ( 2218/ four percent), Volkswagen ( 899/ two percent) and Foton ( 608/ one percent) followed on. That believe it or not is a sum total of 35,371 new utes on our roads in just one year. For comparison’s sake Toyota’s Corolla was the top-selling conventional ‘car’ with 7797 units registered for a seven percent share of that sector. No surprise there, you say? Fair enough. What is surprising is that Corolla was the lone ‘car’ in the top six, the other entrants being SUVs. What all this means is simple, and as consumers it is us who are enjoying the greatest benefit. ‘ Utes’ like the Ranger/ BT- 50 and Amarok redefined the levels of refinement and user-friendliness you could expect in a ‘ work’ vehicle, meaning for the first time, someone looking for a robust work ‘ truck’ to carry and tow things with could also use it as the primary family ‘car.’ For a while there the manufacturers were a bit slow to react to this wholesale change in buyer demand. But now, even Toyota has finally sorted out its rear spring/ damper rates, Nissan has fixed the steering issue which many of us thought took the edge of the otherwise very good NP300, and Mercedes has finally got X-Class models to sell here. What’s next? In my humble opinion what is now needed is a new line of what I suppose you could call ‘Corolla’ or Tucson-size utes. Back in the day Mazda’s B1600 and Nissan’s 720 line sold in their 1000s here. And as more and more Kiwis live in cities and towns, and houses and section sizes get smaller, full-size TD DCs like the Ranger, Hilux, etc, will do what some critics are already accusing them of, and that is becoming too big for their boots!