An Australian icon is turning 80 this year, as Ford prepares to celebrate the ‘Oak Anniversary’ of the Aussie ute.
It was 1933 when 23 year-old designer Lewis ‘Lew’ Bandt was handed a letter by Ford Australia Director Hubert French; and the coupe pickup truck as we know it debuted the following year.
The origins of the letter are as famous as the vehicle itself, when a farmer’s wife from Gippsland, Victoria, wrote to French with a request.
“My husband and I can’t afford a car and a truck, but we need a car to go to church on Sunday and a truck to take the pigs to market on Monday. Can you help?”
Bandt sketched out his design on a blackboard, concentrating on incorporating the cabin and load-carrying area into one body.
This bucked the more popular trend of the time, where a tray was simply added to an existing passenger car chassis.
The first ute had a payload of 545 kilograms on a wheelbase of 2845mm, and Bandt was even responsible for the name, calling his creation the “coupe-utility”.
The rest is history.
While Australians are now buying more utes than ever, our taste has changed in recent years as a sales comparison between Ford’s two key offerings demonstrates.
The Ford Falcon Ute with 4679 sales was outsold last year by the 2WD Ford Ranger, which managed 4839 sales.
Add in the far more popular 4WD Ford Ranger’s sales figure of 16,913, and the Ranger racked up a total of 21,752 sales for 2013.
Australia isn’t the only country with a thirst for utility vehicles, as Ford has enjoyed enormous and ongoing success with its F-Series pickups in the US since the big truck first hit the market.
Lew Bandt retired in 1975, and was killed following a collision in 1987 while driving a restored version of his own creation.
This year will see the last Australian-designed and built Ford ute come to be, as Ford unveils its final Falcon update later in the year.
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10 Comments
Ford have lost the plot, why would they take a picture of a Ranger when they are talking AUSSIE designed and it should have been a Falcon photo???:) FoA REALLY hate the Falcon :(
:rolleyes: The Ford Ranger WAS designed by Ford Australia
incorrect, partly designed only, and the vehicle is fully imported.
Martin, I don't know where you dreamt up your missleading information from. The design and engineering of the Ranger was led by Ford Australia. Very little input came from anywhere else in the world. Built elsewhere and imported. So what? So will everything else in a few short years. In fact, along with it's wagon variant, within a few years it will be the ONLY Australian designed and engineered vehicle available.
Ford USA said to Ford Australia the Falcon is history, so don't promote it so we can blame the public for not buying it and hence minimise the damage to the brand.
And heres to many more decades!... OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
When Ford stop making cars in Australia, I will never buy another Ford again.
Why? What IMPORTED vehicle brand will you buy? Holden, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Chrysler, VW, Toyota? They have all built cars here in the past and have either pulled out or announced that they will. Doesn't leave a lot of choice!
Haha, his attitude is probably something stupid like "yeah but at least most of the import brands never pretended to care about the Aussie workforce!!!!" What a bell-end.
Yeah, I prefer to think of it as how Australia's oldest car maker has provided so much employment for Australians for so many years. And with full design, engineering and testing facilities staying in Australia, as the largest car company employer, in the future will still continue to provide emplyment for many thousands of Australian for many years to come. They will also be the ONLY company to supply Australian designed products.