UTE OR PICKUP?
Down here at the bottom of the world, we pretty much call anything with a tray on the back a “ute”. But if we’re being pedantic (who us?), that’s not technically correct when we’re talking about a double-cab light commercial like a Ford Ranger or Toyota Hilux; that would be a “pickup truck”.
The utility is a very specific type of vehicle created in the US in the 1920s and popularised by Australia in the 1930s: a two-door model with a tray that’s based on a passenger-car chassis. So although a truck is a truck, a ute is really a different kind of car.
As we know (because Ford Australia keeps telling us), an Aussie named Lew Bandt created a two-door ute based on the Ford Model A in 1932, in response to a (possibly apocryphal) request from a customer for a vehicle that could be used for church on Sunday and carting the pigs on Monday.
Ford Australia claims to have invented the modern ute with this vehicle. Which it kind of did, as the US versions were open-top “roadster utilities”, whereas the Aussie creation was a tin-top. Holden came along with a 48-215 ute in 1951 and suddenly it was all on, culminating in Falcon and Commodore utes for modern times.
But with the demise of manufacturing in Australia, we haven’t had a genuine Aussie ute since 2017. More to the point, we’ve all pretty much called onetonne trucks utes for ages anyway.
Holden had a go at recalibrating the Australasian lingo back in 2016 with the then-new Colorado, encouraging people to call it a “truck” (drawing on GM’s American commercial heritage) rather than a ute. Didn’t work then, certainly won’t now.