Australia doesn't love utes – it loves pick-up trucks - CarAdvice
I have no issues calling it a Ute. There are still plenty of people out there that call it a Ute if it has a tray. Call it what you like. I think its still acceptable to refer to them as Utes. If Ford starts marketing it as a Pick-up so be it but not sure what the consumer would think about it. They are “Light Commercial Vehicles” in Tasmania. It’s bad enough the stupid Yank term “SUV” has infected the world, without them replacing our term for something we created. Not to mention the horrid American looking Ranger front end that Aussies are starting to consider looks “tough” instead of the gauche and tacky creation it is. They should sell them with a banjo in the back. The word ‘pick-up’ is referred to a body-style that has a open cargo bed, like the way ‘ute’ is sometimes. A pickup could be based on a car (Falcon) or a truck(Ranger, F-series). But because in America most pickups come as trucks, they will call any vehicle with a with pickup-bed a ‘truck’, even if it was car based like the Falcon and not actually a truck. This is all going to get very technical, but I’d like to believe Australian’s will keep calling them Utes, even though most will tell you they’re not (Ranger/Hilux/D-Max) and that Ute’s only refer to car based models, like the Falcon and Commodore. But it’s an Aussie term and I think it should be retained. Source: www.caradvice.com.au
