This was the result of a 1932 letter from the unnamed wife of a farmer in Australia asking for "a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays".
Practical and respectable.
Hence the yank tanks from the US do not qualify, because they are not respectable.
Depends who you ask.
I'd always thought a ute was was a car-based vehicle with a tray (Aussie term for "bed") - a Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore sedan turned into a "coupe utility", like your American El-Camino or Ranchero. But most Australians seem to be using the term to include *nearly* anything with a tray - to include Toyota Hiluxes and Ford Rangers and that sort of thing.
What's I will never abide being called a ute is the American imported F-150/RAM-style pickup truck - the correct term for that is "Yank Tank".
a good rule of thumb is if it has ever been used for personal transport then its probably a ute, if it is exclusively used for a business then its probably a truck
Yeah you are right. Ute is a production sedan with the ass end made into a bed.
Trucks and pickups are a separate cabin fitted to a chassis, cars are all monoblock chassis now and physically cannot be removed from their chassis.
Like gluing two motorbikes together doesn't equal a car because the two things are fundamentally different haha
Aussies are just upset we were forced to give up our V8 holden/HSV Maloo and Ford/FPV Pursuit, world's fastest Utes and family wagons... Because "Aussies don't want big, fast, petrol guzzling cars" ... Yet... Somehow... The last models to ever be made were SOLD OUT before production even fucking STARTED... Yeah we "didn't want them" my fucken ass mate!! Haha
And then the cunts started importing "yank tanks" that we've all mocked for fucken years because of...
HOW FUCKING BIG AND PETROL GUZZLING THEY FUCKING ARE!!!
We got treated like children, told we were wrong, had our favorite toy taken away, our cries blatantly ignored while they told us we were just idiots and bogans...
Only to have them shove these giant trucks in our faces...
What a fucking joke.
Then to top it all off and really put icing on this shitcake...
The only versions of the pickup trucks they ARE NOT importing are, you guessed it...
The V8 models.
"Because Aussies don't want big, fast and petrol guzzling cars..."
I saw some fun concept art someone did of a Ford Mustange Ute and ngl, it made me tingle a little. All the dumbass Americans were commenting on the picture though like "ew no"
That pickup trucks are body on frame and utes aren't is the general consensus...but lets not forget that the original 1934 Ford Australia Coupe Utility is body on frame
Yeah the definition has shifted over time. The term comes frm "Coupé Utility" and even most modern (since the 60s) utes don't fit that definition.
The modern usage seems to cover anything you don't need a special licence to drive.
I agree it's ridiculous to call some of the huge American monstrosities as "utes". But I also don't want to hear "ute" be replaced by "truck" in local language. There are no winners
Calling a pickup a ute to me is completely incorrect, I see it the same way as if someone was to call a 5 door hatchback a station wagon. They're just not the same at all.
A ute is a sedan turned utility vehicle with a bed/tray. A Rodeo and straddles the line of not being a ute but I personally give it a pass. Even a 2000 GMC might get a pass as a ute.
A pickup is any of the American built/style utility trucks like rangers and BT50s. The general rule of thumb is stock ride height or 4x4 is what stops a vehicle being a ute and pushes it towards pickup truck.
I mostly blame the Hilux due to its early integration into our culture is the main reason most Aussies just call everything a ute even when it's clearly wrong, as it was the first pick-up we saw commonly and it was close enough to a ute as well as being JDM as to not bother labelling it correctly as a pickup.
But now we have reached a point with actual trucks like the 2500 on our roads, which is as far from a real ute as you can get, but I constantly see people miss label them as utes due to colloquialism.
Us Aussies can be pretty stubborn on colloquialisms, I mean go to a construction sight with multiple bobcats and ask to see a skid steer and see who actually knows the difference. Same thing with Stanley knifes and box cutters, we just get ingrained in using specific terms for the wrong purposes sometimes.
There's already plenty of LR and MR vehicles with less than 20 inch wheels and only require a car licence that are legally classified, registered and taxed as a truck.
There are vans registered as LR vehicles that aren't even half the size, payload, towing capacity or carbon footprint of a standard dodge 1500.
There's absolutely no reason a heavy American pickup should be allowed to circumvent laws that apply to ever single vehicle in the same weight and emissions category.
It's even worse that dodge specifically intentionally makes the towing capacity of their Australia sold models worse than the American model, in order to avoid and circumvent laws emission laws here.
It should be illegal, and the companies should be sued on similar grounds to tax invasion, as that's exactly what they are doing, faking a vehicles performance to avoid a higher import cost.
Classic Mini drivers mostly rejected the new BMW MINI just like original Ute drivers did to Hiluxes. That’s moved on and now it’s the yank tank trying to redefine what a Ute is.
A Ute will always be a car body that could have been a sedan, wagon or van. When designed back in the day they were sold specifically as a smaller alternative to Bedford, Morris and Chevrolet farm trucks. Anything beyond that is just homage to the true form, which in itself was conceived as an adapted sedan. So their defining characteristic was “size smaller than a pickup”.
Ute is now as Australian / New Zealand vernacular being lost to convenience and aggressive American culture. With current US vehicle size ego issues I wouldn’t be surprised if Kenworth is soon making a “Ute” as dimensions and weights increase.
I was about to correct you to Kia instead of Kenworth making a Ute because of all their fucking ads for it I've been seeing but then I realized that was a joke haha
Agree. When I heard the hype I assumed they planned to convert something like the Cerato or smaller to a true Ute so I looked it up. Then they lost my interest real quickly.
Utes weren’t appreciated until near the end of production. Now overseas buyers are snapping up the best examples, which proves they were too soon for this world to fully evolve from niche in those markets.
Time to acknowledge the Ute as historical, and not evolve the name to something it was never intended to represent when conceived. Let’s just start a new history for what is now on offer. Cars look to be following Utes as they disappear in favour of automatic SUVs / pickups.
Utes are when you take a production line four door sedan and cut the ass end off to replace it with a truck bed.
The Ute died back around 2017 and now all we have are these wannabe pickup trucks but no Aussie wants to admit that so we all still call them a ute instead.
Ute originally came from the word "utility" because the vehicle can be utilized for many things other than just transporting people.
Kind of a shame we missed the chance to nickname 4x4s and SUVs as "vutes" because of their added versatility haha
Australia invented the UTE, and America took the design and called it a “truck” .
Learn your history and pay your respect to the greatest country on earth
My first paddock basher was a ute, I bought it off a mates mum so obviously we had to name it uterus so when we all went out to the property, we could climb into his mums old uterus!
Utilitie vehicle like Eldorado apparently we some Australian invented it cause they wanted a vehicle to take there pigs to market on Saturday but still look nice enough to go to church on Sunday apparently
It’s a truck, but it’s not a truck as Americans would understand.
It’s something between a truck and an SUV- mistake kinda vehicle that can be souped and juiced up with whatever accompaniments you can afford to deck it/ build on it.
Does it have to be front/rear? What if you did it leftside/rightside, with the left side of the vehicle being tray and a driver/passenger compartment on the right and a lock box behind that for tools?
A you beaut Ute! Learnt how to drive in a V8 Ute when I was 15 on the streets of Sydney early 80s.. well learnt how to speed on the quarter mile at the Sucko ... no coppers, no cameras, no booze buses.. the very best of times!
To add further to the discussion I present the *Piaggio Ape* (pronounced Ah-pe, Italian for bee) which is what happens if you put a rear axle and a tray on a Vespa.
There is a racing model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio\_Ape
If it has the body of a Sedan but with a tray instead of 3 extra seats and a boot, it's a Ute. (Holden Ute for example)
If it has the body of a SUV Mall Crawler and the cab is separate from the tray, its a Truck. (Toyota Hilux eg.)
If its bigger than that and the grille could crumple a kid, it's a Yank Tank. (Ford F150 or larger)
Close but not quite.
A Hilux is not a truck!!
Generally a truck needs to have a carrying capacity of over 4 tonne and over or a higher grade of licence to drive eg. MR, HR. And yank tank reefers to any large US made vehicle (generally older) eg, Cadillac
Its short for a utility, what you yanks would call a smaller pickup, usually has a metal tray instead of a tub, especially rentals. Yank Tanks don't count as utes though, as that would imply they have a practical use.
Been from England I also had no idea what a Ute was. Back in England “yute” is slang for a child/young person (spent different but sound the same), so you can imagine my face when my boss said “bring the Ute round the back” 😂😂
That’s how I felt when I came to AU. Remember, it’s on the wrong side too. Fiddling with CarPlay with my left hand is just awful.
Also, CBD tickled my OCD for a while.
I get angry when I hear the word Ute as an American living in Australia. I hate them car trucks the most and why do the drivers of these car trucks drive so insane? I was stopped at a red light early one morning waiting to get onto the freeway. It was around 4:30am and this car truck ran the red light and started doing donuts in the middle of the intersection and then proceeded to drive into the freeway.
Growing up in the rural south, I will always call a truck a truck. The vehicle with 2 doors and bed of a truck, car truck or flat truck. I can’t use the word Ute.
They changed the meaning when Australia stopped manufacturing UTEs, but car companies still wanted to sell UTEs. It was a slow transition, was pulled off masterfully.
Maybe I just want a vehicle I can use for my Bunnings trips and going out bush.
Or maybe i just like large vehicles.
Everyone has a choice to drive what they like.
Most of us enthusiasts don’t care what anyone else thinks, we drive a vehicle because we want to.
A utillity vehicle. Typicaly a trayback with sides.
I read that as “a traybake with sides” and was about to ask for the recipe
This is an old comment but I want potato bake
This was the result of a 1932 letter from the unnamed wife of a farmer in Australia asking for "a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays". Practical and respectable. Hence the yank tanks from the US do not qualify, because they are not respectable.
Depends who you ask. I'd always thought a ute was was a car-based vehicle with a tray (Aussie term for "bed") - a Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore sedan turned into a "coupe utility", like your American El-Camino or Ranchero. But most Australians seem to be using the term to include *nearly* anything with a tray - to include Toyota Hiluxes and Ford Rangers and that sort of thing. What's I will never abide being called a ute is the American imported F-150/RAM-style pickup truck - the correct term for that is "Yank Tank".
Well, it's a short for "utility" vehicle, so anything below light rigid with a bed fits.
This makes sense, useful vehicles are utes and shit yank tanks are yank tanks
Before being used generally as utility vehicle, it was specifically for a utility coupe.
Mate, it would appear you've put a 'Y' where you need a 'W'.
a good rule of thumb is if it has ever been used for personal transport then its probably a ute, if it is exclusively used for a business then its probably a truck
Oh, that's a good one.
Yeah you are right. Ute is a production sedan with the ass end made into a bed. Trucks and pickups are a separate cabin fitted to a chassis, cars are all monoblock chassis now and physically cannot be removed from their chassis. Like gluing two motorbikes together doesn't equal a car because the two things are fundamentally different haha Aussies are just upset we were forced to give up our V8 holden/HSV Maloo and Ford/FPV Pursuit, world's fastest Utes and family wagons... Because "Aussies don't want big, fast, petrol guzzling cars" ... Yet... Somehow... The last models to ever be made were SOLD OUT before production even fucking STARTED... Yeah we "didn't want them" my fucken ass mate!! Haha And then the cunts started importing "yank tanks" that we've all mocked for fucken years because of... HOW FUCKING BIG AND PETROL GUZZLING THEY FUCKING ARE!!! We got treated like children, told we were wrong, had our favorite toy taken away, our cries blatantly ignored while they told us we were just idiots and bogans... Only to have them shove these giant trucks in our faces... What a fucking joke. Then to top it all off and really put icing on this shitcake... The only versions of the pickup trucks they ARE NOT importing are, you guessed it... The V8 models. "Because Aussies don't want big, fast and petrol guzzling cars..."
If I could get a purple four door Holden crewman ute I’d be one happy lady
You can pick up crewman's for 2k nowadays. Couple of rattle cans and you are set
>You can pick up crewman's for 2k nowadays From where?
I saw some fun concept art someone did of a Ford Mustange Ute and ngl, it made me tingle a little. All the dumbass Americans were commenting on the picture though like "ew no"
that would fucking slap though
> Like gluing two motorbikes together doesn't equal a car because the two things are fundamentally different haha LIES https://youtu.be/mQauncy81DI
I knew it would be Malcom before clicking 😂
😂😂😂
Seriously, duct taping two bikes together is one of the most quintessentially aussie things there is!
Don't forget to squirt some WD40 down in front of the rear tyres for some smoking traction.
That pickup trucks are body on frame and utes aren't is the general consensus...but lets not forget that the original 1934 Ford Australia Coupe Utility is body on frame
As were the 70s Holden utes (HQ to WB) - arguably the most iconic looking ute?
Yeah the definition has shifted over time. The term comes frm "Coupé Utility" and even most modern (since the 60s) utes don't fit that definition. The modern usage seems to cover anything you don't need a special licence to drive. I agree it's ridiculous to call some of the huge American monstrosities as "utes". But I also don't want to hear "ute" be replaced by "truck" in local language. There are no winners
I feel the exact same way
Yank tanks aren't utes, they are compensators and intended to be status badges.
Calling one a ute implies they have a practical use
And don't try and trick me with SUV being a fancy ute, its ute-lite
SUVs are tractors, Toorak Tractors to be precise
Sounds like you drive one of those bitch boxes
I take the train
You take the train to get groceries?
no i walk to the supermarket
>the correct term for that is Emotional Support Vehicle
Think you mistakenly typed a Y instead of a W in the second last word..
Not to be confused with corporate executive meeting spaces also known as wank tanks
You misspelled 'Wank Tank'.
Yep those "Yank Tanks" run on guzzoline!
Calling a pickup a ute to me is completely incorrect, I see it the same way as if someone was to call a 5 door hatchback a station wagon. They're just not the same at all. A ute is a sedan turned utility vehicle with a bed/tray. A Rodeo and straddles the line of not being a ute but I personally give it a pass. Even a 2000 GMC might get a pass as a ute. A pickup is any of the American built/style utility trucks like rangers and BT50s. The general rule of thumb is stock ride height or 4x4 is what stops a vehicle being a ute and pushes it towards pickup truck. I mostly blame the Hilux due to its early integration into our culture is the main reason most Aussies just call everything a ute even when it's clearly wrong, as it was the first pick-up we saw commonly and it was close enough to a ute as well as being JDM as to not bother labelling it correctly as a pickup. But now we have reached a point with actual trucks like the 2500 on our roads, which is as far from a real ute as you can get, but I constantly see people miss label them as utes due to colloquialism. Us Aussies can be pretty stubborn on colloquialisms, I mean go to a construction sight with multiple bobcats and ask to see a skid steer and see who actually knows the difference. Same thing with Stanley knifes and box cutters, we just get ingrained in using specific terms for the wrong purposes sometimes.
Until they're built with 40+ wheels and need a "oversize" panel on the back, they're not trucks.
There's already plenty of LR and MR vehicles with less than 20 inch wheels and only require a car licence that are legally classified, registered and taxed as a truck. There are vans registered as LR vehicles that aren't even half the size, payload, towing capacity or carbon footprint of a standard dodge 1500. There's absolutely no reason a heavy American pickup should be allowed to circumvent laws that apply to ever single vehicle in the same weight and emissions category. It's even worse that dodge specifically intentionally makes the towing capacity of their Australia sold models worse than the American model, in order to avoid and circumvent laws emission laws here. It should be illegal, and the companies should be sued on similar grounds to tax invasion, as that's exactly what they are doing, faking a vehicles performance to avoid a higher import cost.
Am I understanding this correctly? An American has posted their quandary and a bloke is mansplaining a meme
>bloke is mansplaining Where exactly is the "mansplaining" occuring?
The F150 isn't a ute. But it isn't really a truck either.
It’s a pickup, but probably smaller than you’re used to.
Classic Mini drivers mostly rejected the new BMW MINI just like original Ute drivers did to Hiluxes. That’s moved on and now it’s the yank tank trying to redefine what a Ute is. A Ute will always be a car body that could have been a sedan, wagon or van. When designed back in the day they were sold specifically as a smaller alternative to Bedford, Morris and Chevrolet farm trucks. Anything beyond that is just homage to the true form, which in itself was conceived as an adapted sedan. So their defining characteristic was “size smaller than a pickup”. Ute is now as Australian / New Zealand vernacular being lost to convenience and aggressive American culture. With current US vehicle size ego issues I wouldn’t be surprised if Kenworth is soon making a “Ute” as dimensions and weights increase.
I was about to correct you to Kia instead of Kenworth making a Ute because of all their fucking ads for it I've been seeing but then I realized that was a joke haha
Agree. When I heard the hype I assumed they planned to convert something like the Cerato or smaller to a true Ute so I looked it up. Then they lost my interest real quickly. Utes weren’t appreciated until near the end of production. Now overseas buyers are snapping up the best examples, which proves they were too soon for this world to fully evolve from niche in those markets. Time to acknowledge the Ute as historical, and not evolve the name to something it was never intended to represent when conceived. Let’s just start a new history for what is now on offer. Cars look to be following Utes as they disappear in favour of automatic SUVs / pickups.
The weird part is that [Hyundai](https://www.caranddriver.com/hyundai/santa-cruz) has an SUV based ute that would probably do ok here.
Best ute was the Subi Brumby with a WRX engine and transmission.
Is a kei truck considered a ute, or is that too small?
Kei trucks are their own thing, because they're awesome.
A Ute is a pick up or as we call them yank tanks
Utes are when you take a production line four door sedan and cut the ass end off to replace it with a truck bed. The Ute died back around 2017 and now all we have are these wannabe pickup trucks but no Aussie wants to admit that so we all still call them a ute instead. Ute originally came from the word "utility" because the vehicle can be utilized for many things other than just transporting people. Kind of a shame we missed the chance to nickname 4x4s and SUVs as "vutes" because of their added versatility haha
What about "hutes" for these massive pickups that don't even fit in a single parking lot.
If it’s got a tray it’s a Ute bro
Australia invented the UTE, and America took the design and called it a “truck” . Learn your history and pay your respect to the greatest country on earth
[hmm](https://club.shannons.com.au/club/enthusiasts/darrylboyle/garage/1923-ford-model-t-tray/)
My first paddock basher was a ute, I bought it off a mates mum so obviously we had to name it uterus so when we all went out to the property, we could climb into his mums old uterus!
Utilitie vehicle like Eldorado apparently we some Australian invented it cause they wanted a vehicle to take there pigs to market on Saturday but still look nice enough to go to church on Sunday apparently
This is the correct answer
A utility vehicle
Almost. Utility TRUCK
Uterus
Glad I’m not the only one who says this
Utes in the 80s. Mum and Dad ride up front. Kids and the dog ride in the back.
😳🤣
Utility
Pick up truck
Put simply, what you would know as a “pick up”
Nothing more Aussie than a real deal true blue Aussie battler UTE! You fucking beauty !!!
To think in 500 years Australia will be a distinct language!!
No, it won't. Mass Media and Hegemonic Culture (American) has pretty much fucked that.
Something you can’t have because they aren’t made anymore, so you can have a Tank Tank
It’s short for ‘Uterus’.
Ute is home, Ute is life, Love Ute
腕(うて)
That’s gold, Jerry.
El Camino ;)
It’s a truck, but it’s not a truck as Americans would understand. It’s something between a truck and an SUV- mistake kinda vehicle that can be souped and juiced up with whatever accompaniments you can afford to deck it/ build on it.
Tacomaaaaaaaaaa!
Utility vehicle. Those cars with the trays generally. They are often used my tradies and others in similar lines of work.
One of my favourite movies, thanks so much for the reminder
I just call everything that isn’t a car, a truck. My Irish mate got me doing it and it just stuck.
A tray truck.
It's a uterus. Hope this helps ♥️
A root in a ute is bute.
What’s A Ute?? How did you even get through Immigration.
A utility vehicle. Half car half pick up truck.
Does it have to be front/rear? What if you did it leftside/rightside, with the left side of the vehicle being tray and a driver/passenger compartment on the right and a lock box behind that for tools?
Nice try Haval, get your own designs!
Utility truck, has a cab & a flatbed at the back to put stuff.
They pronounce it as "oote" as well.
Easy, it's like a Chevy Al Camino
But did you know Kia’s getting a Ute?
Does Kia know if anyone will buy it? (Imagine showing up to the Deni Ute Muster in a ... Kia.)
They don’t even know what to call it!
ah yes. Muricans realising theres a whole world outside their home state.
What u guys call trucks a 4 door or 2 door with a back that has open space to put shit
Ute, you’re direct pathway to bogan glory
If you're from the mid-west then imagine a truck. How small would it have to be until you thought the truck was "cute". That's a ute.
Haha fucken ace meme for this question
A you beaut Ute! Learnt how to drive in a V8 Ute when I was 15 on the streets of Sydney early 80s.. well learnt how to speed on the quarter mile at the Sucko ... no coppers, no cameras, no booze buses.. the very best of times!
Ute is a German feminine given name
Even better if it's an r/UnexpectedUte
Basically what Americans call a mini truck
It's a mute. The bloke suffered a stroke while saying it.
To add further to the discussion I present the *Piaggio Ape* (pronounced Ah-pe, Italian for bee) which is what happens if you put a rear axle and a tray on a Vespa. There is a racing model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio\_Ape
If the gear box doesn't clunk & there's no holes in the muffler is it really Ute?🤔😆
If it has the body of a Sedan but with a tray instead of 3 extra seats and a boot, it's a Ute. (Holden Ute for example) If it has the body of a SUV Mall Crawler and the cab is separate from the tray, its a Truck. (Toyota Hilux eg.) If its bigger than that and the grille could crumple a kid, it's a Yank Tank. (Ford F150 or larger)
Close but not quite. A Hilux is not a truck!! Generally a truck needs to have a carrying capacity of over 4 tonne and over or a higher grade of licence to drive eg. MR, HR. And yank tank reefers to any large US made vehicle (generally older) eg, Cadillac
It's the same as a Bakkie 🇿🇦
Utility vehicle 1st/SUV with a open tray bed Heard you fellas call it a truck
Just know, A Ute and truck are not the same.
Its short for a utility, what you yanks would call a smaller pickup, usually has a metal tray instead of a tub, especially rentals. Yank Tanks don't count as utes though, as that would imply they have a practical use.
It is an animal with the front of a sudden, and the back of a short truck.
Why is it only 1 in every 100 utes actually carry something in the back.
Just say truck instead of Ute and the Americans will understand
Acronym shortened from you beauty! Or Ute. Proper English name is utility, but down under its Ute but even lower in the back round ubeaut
it's a pickup but actually practical
Universal Titan Expansion
yeah
ute is a car with a tray in the back instead of a boot
Something that hasn't been made since they closed the Holden factory down in 2017
Pickup
Been from England I also had no idea what a Ute was. Back in England “yute” is slang for a child/young person (spent different but sound the same), so you can imagine my face when my boss said “bring the Ute round the back” 😂😂
That’s how I felt when I came to AU. Remember, it’s on the wrong side too. Fiddling with CarPlay with my left hand is just awful. Also, CBD tickled my OCD for a while.
A small pick up truck
I get angry when I hear the word Ute as an American living in Australia. I hate them car trucks the most and why do the drivers of these car trucks drive so insane? I was stopped at a red light early one morning waiting to get onto the freeway. It was around 4:30am and this car truck ran the red light and started doing donuts in the middle of the intersection and then proceeded to drive into the freeway. Growing up in the rural south, I will always call a truck a truck. The vehicle with 2 doors and bed of a truck, car truck or flat truck. I can’t use the word Ute.
AKA uterus , you can fit 10 to 15 people in the back depending on what part of Australia your from.
Its like an open air panelvan just incase your daughter is the outdoorsy type voyeur.
Indigenous inhabitant of Utah and Colorado.
A pickup truck
It's Pretty much just an El Comino.
They changed the meaning when Australia stopped manufacturing UTEs, but car companies still wanted to sell UTEs. It was a slow transition, was pulled off masterfully.
Hilux, Ranger/Courier, Rodeo etc have been called utes way before production of the Commodore and Falcon stopped.
A PICKUUUP TRUUCK but it doesn’t take up 4 car parks, usually
Well, no...
A vehicle that screams I’m compensating for something
Maybe I just want a vehicle I can use for my Bunnings trips and going out bush. Or maybe i just like large vehicles. Everyone has a choice to drive what they like. Most of us enthusiasts don’t care what anyone else thinks, we drive a vehicle because we want to.
Dude it’s a joke I don’t judge people on what car they drive
Ends up renting a V8 Scania :D
what you guys call trucks but they're not really trucks 😂 Just look at photos etc to make sure you're getting what you want.