The Ford Motor Company has had a long history in Australia. Ford started the Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited in 1925 mainly to produce automobiles for the Australian market. The first Ford that was made in the Australian factories was the Model T followed by the Model A and V8.
The Great Depression brought out a Ford car that is uniquely Australian.
In 1928, designer Lewis Bandt designed a car that was a mix of a sedan and a pickup truck based on the request of a client. The car was meant to “take the family to church on Sunday and the pigs to market on Monday”. It was based on the Model A Closed Pickup Truck. The car was called a “coupe utility” as it had the front half of a coupe and the rear end of a utility truck.
Original Ford Australia design office renderings show how the company made four different XK Falcon models off the same 109.5-inch wheelbase. Note the name L.T Bandt at the bottom right of the drawing – the same man who created the world’s first coupe utility in the 1930s. Truckjungle
During the Great Depression, the coupe utility became a popular choice for farmers as banks did not want to give out loans on personal cars as they deemed it as an unnecessary luxury at that time. The banks, however, extended loans to work vehicles. The popularity of the Ute went up as it could be both a work vehicle but also a family car.
In 1960, Ford Australia introduced the Ford Falcon which was designed and made for the Australian market. The Falcon came in a variety of configurations including the Sedan, Deluxe Sedan and Wagon. The following year, Ford introduced the Ford Falcon Utility and Sedan Delivery. The Falcon Utility had a 2.4 litre inline six-cylinder engine capable of producing 90bhp and 138 lb-ft of torque. The engine was coupled with either a three-speed manual or a two-speed automatic gearbox. The Falcon Utility was made to be fuel efficient doing 30mpg.
Photos via Truck Jungle
The Ford Falcon Utility had a unique design to its American counterparts as it had a short tail which meant it was more stable on the rugged Australian roads. The shorter tail coupled with the shorter doors meant that more load was placed in front of the rear axle. The rear flatbed of the Falcon Utility was just two meters long. Ford also designed the Falcon Utility to be rugged and capable of carrying a huge payload. The suspension of the Falcon Utility was a leaf spring suspension with two-stage springs capable of 542kgs of payload. The brakes were also beefed up to handle the extra payload. The interior of the car was very basic and utilitarian.
Photos via Truck Jungle
The Ford XK Falcon in all its configurations sold 68,465 units until it was replaced by the XL model.
As a testament to the success of the ute platform, Ford continued to produce the Ford Falcon Utility for seven generations spanning 55 years from 1961 to 2016. The Ford Falcon sold over 3,000,000 units with 467,000 units of the Ford Falcon Utility.
Photo via Truck Trend
Production of the Ford Falcon Utility will end on 7th October 2016. Ford has decided to close down its facilities in Australia in favour of factories in and around Asia. The Ford Falcon Utility will be forever remembered as a quintessential Australian vehicle.
Leave a reply