Who Invented The Ute?

The ute is a fixture of Australian roads and a beloved member of its motoring culture, carrying its farming and construction industries, among others, and doing similarly heavy duty off the clock. While there’s no doubt that Australians and New Zealanders hold the most love for the ute, and have produced some of its finest and most inventive examples, there’s a little more contention around who invented them in the first place.

In the early 20th century, the idea of developing some kind of load-bearing capacity in a motor car was not a particularly new one. In fact, some say that the 1903 Oldsmobile, which has an integrated tub body with a rear storage compartment, could be the first example of the ute.

The Rapid Motor Vehicle Company had been building one-tonne trucks since the early 1900s and Galion Allsteel Body Company began building and installing what were called hauling boxes for a slightly modified Ford Model T chassis in 1913.

Customers were chasing Ford up on this idea as well, requesting a vehicle that could handle heavier work and provide more utility, which led the manufacturer to introduce the Model TT truck in 1917. The TT took the cab and engine from a Model T and mated it to a sturdier frame that could haul a one tonne payload. It could also accommodate various pickup-bed configurations.

Dodge responded with a soft top pickup in 1924, to which Ford replied by offering a ‘pickup box’ as an accessory for the Model T Runabout in 1925, which could be bought separately and bolted to the vehicle. They would then produce the Ford Model T Runabout with Pickup Body, featuring a steel body, adjustable tailgate and heavy duty rear springs.

When The Great Depression arrived in Australia in 1929, banks tightened controls on credit, only offering enough for one car for farmers. This meant that the daily driver had to pull double duty on the farm.

Struggling against this backdrop, an Australian farmer’s wife sent a letter to Hubert French, Ford Australia’s general manager, with a request for a new vehicle that could “go to church on a Sunday, and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays.” Ford historian Bob Kreipke has actually referenced a similar idea supporting the development of utility vehicles in the US at the time.

Recognising the potential of the idea, French gave the job to a young designer, Lew Bandt, who got to work modifying a Ford coupe sedan. Bandt strengthened the chassis, shortened the cabin and extended the side panels from the rear of the cab to the rear of the tray, where a hinged tailgate was installed. And thus, the Ford Australia Coupe Utility entered production in 1934. However, ‘coupe utility’ was considered far too long and descriptive by most Australians, so in everyday vernacular the vehicle quickly became known as a ‘ute’.

There are some defining characteristics of the ute in comparison to earlier trucks and pickups that lead to the consideration that it is an Australian invention, mainly centred around the soft top designs, and integrated bodywork. A ute is based on a traditional passenger car, as opposed to being built from the ground up as a truck, and many of the most popular utes are variations on sedan ranges, such as Falcons and Commodores. The passenger tray is also integrated into the vehicle. They tend to be two-wheel drive, have two doors, seat two passengers, be smaller and feature similar running gear and suspension to their coupe variants, meaning that their capacity for both storage and towing is lower.

Based upon these passenger cars, they also have a tendency to get a little loony, equipped with big V8s up front driving the rear wheels (the ones sitting underneath the light, not necessarily loaded rear tray) and breathing through raucous exhausts, riding sports suspension and big wheels with low profile tyres. These can handle the getting to church part of their original billing with expediency, but are perhaps less suited to getting the pigs to market.

Sadly, they’re also disappearing. In the mid-2010s there was a moment of shock in Aussie motoring discourse, when some brands began referring to utes as trucks. The Australian motor industry has all but disappeared since then, taking the mad utes from Ford and Holden with them. These days, most of the modern utility vehicles you see on the road are four-door four-wheel-drive pickups. These are bigger, more practical and more capable, and make a lot of sense as hard working vehicles for hard working tradespeople.

However, they lack that sense of fun and hooligan Aussie spirit that resonated so strongly with the country’s car-loving culture and saw Australians celebrate and perfect the ‘coupe utility’.