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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) |
The coupé utility combines a two-door "coupé" cabin with an integral cargo bed behind the cabin—using a light-duty unibody automobile platform rather than a pickup truck's heavier duty body-on-frame construction.
Contents |
Features
A Coupé Utility style has some or all of these features:
- Body style with coupé lines, especially using a fixed roof, but like a truck it has an integral open cargo area at rear.
- Like a passenger car, it is built as a monocoque, as opposed to the separate cab and body construction of a pickup truck.
- Usually derived from existing coupé or sedan, not from a pickup truck.
- Low profile road tires and alloy rims may be fitted.
- Low ground clearance.
Origin
Ford Australia was the first to integrate a cargo area with the bodywork of a passenger car.[1], as the result of a request from a farmers wife in Victoria, in 1935. Ford Australia combined the cab of its newly released Ford Coupé body with a well-type load area fully integrated into the coupé body, producing the first 'Coupé Utilities'.[2] Holden built a Chevrolet ute in 1935, but utes were not sold in America until the 1957 Ford Ranchero. Both types of vehicles were called "utilities" or "utes" for short.
Both the Coupe Utility and the Roadster pickup continued in production, but the improving economy of the mid to late 1930s and the desire for improved comfort saw coupe utility sales climb at the expense of the roadster pickup until, by 1939, the roadster pickup was all but a fading memory. No car maker offered a roadster pickup or ute when car production restarted after World War II.
By the mid-1980s in North America, the coupé utility began to fall out of favor again with the demise of the Ranchero after 1979, the Volkswagen Caddy, Dodge Rampage/Plymouth Scamp and of the Chevrolet El Camino. Subaru offered the Brat in the early 1980's, and offered a Coupé Utility as the Baja from 2003-2006.
The pickup truck, on the other hand, started its life a little earlier and is defined by its separate, removable, well-type 'pickup bed'. This pickup bed does not contact the cabin part of the vehicle, while the ute bed is an integral part of the whole body. Both the Coupé Utility and Closed Cab pickup designs migrated to light truck chassis & these are correctly known respectively as Utility trucks & Pickup trucks. Eventually the pickup design found a natural home on the smaller truck chassis while the ute became entrenched as a passenger car derivitave, although exceptions do apply.
See also: Cultural Significance of The Australian Ute
Other names
The original makers of roadster utilities and coupé utilities called these vehicles "utilities". The term was quickly shorted to "ute", pronounced "yoot", rhyming with "boot".
Australians define a "ute" as any commercial vehicle that has an open cargo carrying space, but requires only a passenger car licence to drive. This includes coupé utilities, pickup trucks and traybacks (flatbed pickup trucks). An example of the broadness of this definition is that anything from a Ford F250 XL to a Proton Jumbuck called a ute.
In South Africa, no special distinction is made for coupé utes—all classes of pickup trucks are simply called bakkies, which derives from the Dutch word "bak", meaning pan or tray, referring to the car's cargo bed.
Variations
Since readers in many parts of the world may be unfamiliar with the formal term "Coupé Utility", here follows some examples of vehicles using this body style.
Modern coupé utilities
Modern vehicles of the Coupe utility style include, among others:
- 2003–2006 Subaru Baja
- 2008 Ford Bantam
- 2008 Nissan 1400 LDV
- 2008 Proton Arena (aka Jumbuck)
- 2008 Ford Falcon Ute
- 2008 Holden Ute (Also sold as Chevrolet Lumina Ute)
- Volkswagen Pointer Pick Up, derived from the Pointer/Gol, built and sold in Mexico
Famous coupé utilities of the past
- 1952–58 Ford Australia V8 Mainline ute
- 1969 Ford Australia Falcon 4WD ute
- 1978 Ford Australia Falcon Cobra ute (only 4 produced)
- 1957–79 Ford Ranchero
- 1959–87 Chevrolet El Camino
- GMC Caballero
- Chevrolet SSR
Compact
- Dodge Rampage/Plymouth Scamp, part of the Dodge Omni family.
- Volkswagen Caddy , derived from the Volkswagen Golf car.
- Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup, derived from the VW Rabbit car (US-built version of first-generation Golf).
- Subaru Brat, similar to the Subaru 1600.
- Dodge Ram 50/Plymouth Arrow Truck. (It is debatable whether this vehicle was a car-pickup, an early example of a true compact pickup, or both. Albeit that it was a rear-wheel drive vehicle like typical pickup trucks.)
- AMC Cowboy (prototyped, not manufactured; derived from AMC Hornet; prototypes exist in private ownership)
References
- According to a Holden press release in 2001.[1], the coupe utility "is based on a sedan equivalent and has a load bed integral with the cabin"
- Car Exchange magazine article "Ford V8 Mainline Star", June 1981, pp 76–77.
- ABC interview with automotive historian Adrian Ryan[2]
- The Good Ole Aussie Ute, Larry O'Toole, ISBN 0-949398-26-8