WHAT’S IN A (UTE) NAME?
The etymology of ute names: from places to pretend animals
“Ranger” is a great name for a ute. There’s a little ambiguity to the meaning, which is a plus. But to most people it also clearly connotes the outdoors, adventure and a sense of authority.
It’s a lot more dynamic than the Courier badge used for Ford’s one-tonner in NZ, up until the launch of the T6 Ranger in 2012. But utes were a lot more work-focused back then.
The Ranger name was picked up from an Americanmarket Ford truck produced from 1983-2012.
That was a standalone thing, although it has now been consolidated with the Australian-developed T6.
But the history of the badge goes back to the 1950s, with not just trucks but Ranger versions of the Ford Fairlane and Edsel. Which doesn’t make as much sense; but it’s pretty much agreed that a lot about the Edsel didn’t make sense.
Utes are so familiar to us that we probably don’t tend to think about their names.
Some of them are pretty weird.
The Toyota Hilux name is a portmanteau of “high luxury”.
When the first-generation model was launched in 1968, it was essentially a replacement for the Crown ute, so Toyota wanted to emphasise that this more truck-like machine was still pretty posh. The Mitsubishi Triton started life as the L200, but was subsequently called different things in different markets. It’s been a Forte (“strength”) or Strada (“street” in Italian), but since 2005 it’s been Triton to Kiwis.
Triton is apparently either a merman (with a human upper body and a fish tail on the bottom) or a large mollusc that lives in tropical seas. So . . . yeah.
Nissan’s Navara gets its name from the Navarre region of northern Spain, which makes sense because the truck is built in that country (not ours, they come from Thailand) and Navarre is a place you might go to drive it. Volkswagen’s Amarok is a bit more exotic. It’s a huge wolf in Inuit mythology that hunts alone, rather than in a pack. It can also be spelled “Amaroq”, which might give Skoda a few ideas about a new ute. As long as it starts with a k.