Image: Ford

The popularity of utility vehicles has been on an up-slope for many years now, but these vehicles are nothing new to the market. In fact, Ford is currently celebrating the 80th anniversary of its first utility vehicle-its version of the Australian ute.

Image: Jalopy Journal Blog

Now before you dismiss this as an article that only pertains to our friends Down Under, you should know that it is thanks to the Ford ute, that vehicles like the Ranger and the ever-popular F-series exist today. That caught your attention, didn’t it? So we thought!

The Ford ute was introduced in its concept stage in 1934 by a 23-year-old designer named Lewis Brandt, with the vehicle truly spawning from an idea conjured up by an Australian farmer’s wife.

In a letter that she wrote to Ford of Australia’s Managing Director at the time, Hubert French, she stated that her family could not afford to purchase both a car and a truck, but needed the amenities of both to travel to church on Sundays and to transport pigs on Mondays.

With French’s blessing and Brandt’s design skills, the passenger car-based utility vehicle came to life in drawings, differing from the available “utility vehicles” at the time (such as Ford Model T Buckboards and Utility Runabouts) in that the new ute was a two-passenger coupe constructed of steel panels and featuring windows. Integrated into the vehicle was a steel-paneled “load carrying section.”

Much more modern, the Ford Falcon Ute continues to be a popular vehicle in Australia today. Images: Ford of Australia

Once in concept form, two ute prototypes were created, followed by production orders starting on January 23, 1934. The vehicle was marketed as a coupe-utility at the time.

Although the coupe-utility was built for work, boasting a V8, 3-speed manual gearbox, transverse leaf spring front suspension with shock absorbers, and a heavy-duty semi-elliptical spring and shock combination in the rear, the vehicle offered the class and comfort of a four-door Model 40 5-window coupe. The difference between the car and the coupe-utility, however, was that the ute offered plenty of load capacity in the rear instead of a luggage compartment or seat.

In this form, 22,000 were sold between 1940 and 1954.

The original ute is even credited with spawning the popular Ford Ranger.

A first for Ford of Australia, the ute went on to inspire designs for both pickup trucks and utility vehicles in the region, as well as around the world. Ford credits Brandt’s original design with spawning the Australian Falcon Ute, a vehicle that has a sales record of more than 455,000 vehicles across all of its generations, and the Ranger, which is sold in more than 180 countries.

Without the innovative concept and features of the first Ford ute, the Ford Motor Company also maintains that the F-series would not have been the same over the years. And as the best-selling pickup truck in history, the F-series and Ford owe a lot to Brandt and his original ute design.  

Though Mustang-sized, the modern Falcon Ute is much more than a daily driver. In the right factory combination, this little passenger utility vehicle can be quite the workhorse.