Brute Or Cute, There's A Ute To Suit
Sun Herald
Sunday August 13, 2000
The humble ute isn't so humble any more it has barnstormed back into the hearts and minds of Aussie blokes and blokettes, to the delight of Ford and Holden. BOB JENNINGS looks at the phenomenon.
THE AUSSIE ute is the great social leveller and it's selling hotter than sports cars or even the gun four-wheel drive, the Honda CR-V.
Yet it wasn't so long ago that the ute as we knew it was a dying breed, swamped by the new-age offerings from Japan with vehicles that had sensible four-cylinder engines, quality, practicality and economy.
The Japanese makers moved in on the rural scene in much the same way as they had infiltrated life in the city.
There was no arguing against their economic sense, and of course there were 4WD versions for those who needed them.
Two-wheel-drive HiLuxes spread across the wide brown land to the extent that they were an integral part of the landscape, as widespread as the rabbit but more useful. Unlike the rabbit, people found it hard to do without them.
But they lacked street cred, and when the farm boy went to town, all cleaned up in moleskins and RMs, the four-pot ute just didn't cut it.
Put the lad in an Aussie ute, though, and there was instant, across-the-boundaries appeal. The ute cut across social barriers. Girls didn't mind riding in them because they offered a hint of non-urban excitement. Hell, city girls even drove them; two seats were plenty and a woman with a ute had an outdoorsy, practical air that marked her as someone with attitude.
Let's look at some of the figures. Ford, generally getting its bum kicked by Holden and Toyota, is creaming the Commodore when it comes to ute sales.
In July, the AU Falcon ute, available in a variety of practical versions, outsold the Commodore ute by roughly double. And for the first seven months of the year Ford has moved 7,201 Falcon utes to Holden's 3,913 Commodore utes, although the new VX comes out next month.
Last year, between them, Ford and Holden sold nearly 19,000 utes a 25 per cent increase over 1998. This year, their sales are running 17pc higher despite the GST-inspired slowdown.
We're discovering the ute almost as a heritage icon; after all, legend has it that Australia invented the ute, courtesy of Ford engineer Lewis Bandt.
The story goes that in 1933 a Gippsland farmer's wife wrote to Ford boss Hubert French asking: ``Could you please make a car that we can go to church in on Sunday and take the pigs to market on Monday?"
Bank managers at the time wouldn't lend money to farmers to buy a passenger car, only a farm truck.
French handed the letter to young designer Lew Bandt, who came up with a concept that incorporated the front half of a sedan with the rear half of a light truck and the coupe utility was born. Production started in 1934.
In 1935 Henry Ford invited Bandt to Detroit to design a utility for the US market, especially for Texas.
Ford lore has it that manufacturers around the world eventually copied Bandt's design, but Ford Australia was the first to build and market the coupe utility.
It has produced an unbroken line of coupe utes ever since.
It was almost a natural history progression then that when Ford and Holden went into full Australian manufacture they should make ute versions of their products.
The market has gone up and down in recent years, with Holden losing the plot when it dropped the HQ-based cab-chassis and then coming back with the Commodore ute, although it was considered a bit pretty.
Ford tap-danced in the background, keeping its venerable XF ute going well beyond its use-by date.
However, a stroke of near-genius had the boys at Holden Special Vehicles take a tongue-in-cheek look at the ute and in 1988 they came up with the oddly named Maloo. It was lowered, hot and horny, and about as much use around the farm as hip pockets in a blue singlet.
But it captured the imagination. Now utes are not only hip, they're selling fast and they're hot property on the second-hand market.
Ford kicked a goal when it did a cab-chassis version of the AU ute, allowing businesses to build on to the vehicle the sorts of cargo-carriers that best suited them.
There's even a tipping version.
But the image leaders of the ute are those modified by either Ford's performance partner, Tickford Vehicle Engineering (in its XR series), or by Holden Special Vehicles, which still has the Maloo in its range.
Ford has versions of both the XR6 and XR8; for $30,750 our urban/outback ute enthusiast can obtain the 164kW XR6, or for $35,024 there is the more purposeful 185kW XR8 V8.
The Maloo makes do with the 5.0 litre 195kW V8 in a $44,078 package which comes with four-wheel disc brakes with anti-lock, side skirts, rear wing, sports seats and 17inx7in alloy wheels.
And don't laugh at the concept.
According to the industry's leading pricing guide, Glass's Guide, the residual value of the Maloo and XR series utes is among the top bracket of all categories of vehicles.
Its figures show that after one year's ownership, the Maloo retains 82pc of its original value, after two years it retains 75pc, and the value then holds steady at about 71pc for vehicles from three to five years old.
Ford's AU utility has been on the market for only about 18 months but the XR6 and XR8 utes have a retained value of 86pc and 87pc respectively of their original costs.
As a clincher, the ute tends to be seen as rather more socially responsible than a four-wheel drive, being more car-like in its size, weight and fuel consumption.
It's hard not to like them.
TRAGIC ENDING
Lewis Bandt, the designer of the original Ford coupe utility in 1934, died at the wheel of a replica of the vehicle in 1987. He built the replica and was returning to Geelong after taking part in the filming of a documentary when the ute and a gravel truck collided head-on.
HIT AND MISSES
Bandt was responsible for building six Ford XL Falcon convertibles in 1962 for use in the Miss Australia Quest. The convertibles, which had detachable steel roofs, were based on the Falcon ute platform. The whereabouts of all six remains a mystery.
UTILITY PLAYERS
A Holden V8 ute has competed at Bathurst. Touring car ace-turned-Queensland politician Allan Grice teamed with Brad Jones and John Spencer in the 12-hour production race in 1992.
70S PLATFORMS
Holden introduced a utility version of its HQ model in 1971; it was the platform for the company's long-lived WB ute which extended well beyond the introduction of the Commodore in 1978. The Commodore ute didn't appear until 1990.
© 2000 Sun Herald