Australian FalconsDiscuss the australian born and bred models here. Includes the 80's 90's and present day Falcons offered by Ford Oz.
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There is one in the Ford Discovery centre at Geelong.
Thornett Bandt, a long standing employee of the Ford Motor Company, was the first person to design the "ute". Born 1910. Died 1987. Designed the first utility in Geelong in 1933, when he was chief body engineer for Ford Australia. Kiled in a road accident in 1987 while driving to the filming of a documentary about the development of the utility. The vehicle he was driving was a fully restored 1933 coupe utility.
I have a hard time convincing people that the Holden Commodore is not an Australian invention!!!
G'day,
one of the biggest problems you can encounter on this topic, is that people get confused in terminology.
Ute style vehicles actually predate the australian invention.
in ute style, I infer, an enclosed cab with an area supported by the chassis to carry a 'load'
The actual terminology.
Pickup. A seperate cabin and load carrying body supported on the same chassis. Pickups pre date the classic ute by a long way....about 1920 i believe.
Ute. An integral cabin and load area supported on the same chassis. To qualify as a ute the quarter panels front edge must form the closgin panel for the front door, and the front area of the tub must form the rear wall of the cabin. Pickups do not do this, the closing panel for the door is part of the cabin area only, as such there is a seperate rear cabin wall to the front wall of the tub.
Another view...
Ute...a one piece integral body
Pickup a two piece body
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Jas.
PS....what model of the single spinner was never released in the US?
They assume that holden is Australian and the ute is Australian therefore holden invented the ute
Hah!!! Holden stopped being Australian when they started building cars. The "Holden" company were coach-builders who then made bodies for the American GM chassis that were shipped down here. GM bought them out and kept using the name as it was "Australian"....
On a side note, I heard a little story a while ago that the Yanks let the Aussies design a car ONCE. The 1964 EH holden. It is nothing like what was released. Apparently it was in the final stages of development when the yanks decided to have a sneak peek, and they did not like what they seen. So, all they could do was go back to the EJ and change whatever they could in a limited amount of time. Don't know how true it is, but sounds good......
Actually the reason most people assume that Holden made the first ute is that the 48-215 was the first all Australian designed car and there was a ute avaliable. All the utes prior to this were variants of their American designed and sourced sedans. So in effect they are right and because the first all Aussie designed Falcon here was the XA, the XA ute would be the first 'true' Ford Australia ute. I think I read somewhere the XK was the first Ford Australian ute but this was modified from the American sedan it was based on. Even so this was 10-12 years after the FX.
"Another view...
Ute...a one piece integral body
Pickup a two piece body"
Does that mean the current series Falcon utes are actually pickups as the cabin is separate to the tray?
Yes that is correct, technically the Falcon ute is actually a pickup, not a ute as the body is separate from the tray, but we'll just keep that hush, hush. I don't think people would understand if Ford called it the Falcon pickup, hence the dilemma.
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