Ford celebrates 80th Anniversary of the Iconic Australian Ute.

• Ford celebrates the 80^th anniversary of its ute – the forerunner of modern pickup trucks – based on the first sale to a Melbourne-area farmer in February 1934
• A 23-year-old Ford Australia designer created the ute by listening to the farming family’s request for a vehicle with more utility
• Ford’s truck teams translate customer needs into innovations more than ever, including the all-new 2015 F-150 with high-strength, military-grade, aluminum alloys throughout the body
• Ford sold more than one million pickups globally in 2013 based on Ranger growth in Asia, F-Series’ 37^thstraight year as America’s best-selling truck and the “International Pick-Up Award 2013” in Europe

Ford is celebrating the 80^th anniversary of its Australian invention of the iconic ute, which led to the development of vehicles such as the F-Series and Ranger and propelled the company to years of truck leadership.

Not only was it an Australian invention, but the concept has been exported to the world, reinterpreted by other manufacturers and gained a legion of fans everywhere.

The story of the first Ford ute is a key part of Ford’s rich heritage that has seen the development of such iconic vehicles as the F-Series.

Farming roots

Like all good ideas, the first integrated passenger-car based Ute was born out of necessity, very much like the first Model T Ford.

In mid-1933 the then managing director of the Ford Motor Company of Australia, Hubert French, received a letter from a farmer’s wife in Gippsland, Victoria.

She wrote: “My husband and I can’t afford a car and a truck but we need a car to go to church on Sunday and a truck to take the pigs to market on Monday. Can you help?” What the customer wanted was a vehicle with passenger car comfort but could also carry loads.

French passed the letter on to a young design engineer, Lewis (Lew) Bandt, who had joined the company only a few years previously as Ford’s only designer. Bandt was just 23 years old but was already showing a flair for design for which he was to become quite famous until he retired in 1975.

Bandt died in 1987, after being involved in an accident driving a restored version of the Utility he helped make famous.

Bandt’s take on the passenger car-based utility was considered revolutionary at the time. Until the early 1930s, many auto manufacturers and vehicle body builders had constructed wooden or metal ‘utility’ bodies on car chassis. Henry Ford’s Model T was a particular favourite and Ford T “Buckboards” and “Utility Runabouts” were to be found on farms and delivering goods in towns and cities throughout the world.

The ute is Born

Where Bandt’s design differed was that he developed his Ford utility as a coupe (two-passenger, steel-paneled, glass-windowed car) with an integrated steel-paneled load carrying section at the rear. What Bandt did was to blend the ‘pickup’ sides into a coupe body, which provided a cleaner profile and increased the load area behind the cabin.

Bandt sketched out his ute on a 10 metre blackboard, giving it a 545 kilogram (1200-pound) payload on a wheelbase of 2845 mm (9 feet, 4 inches).

He completed his original design in October, 1933, and quickly produced two prototypes for testing. By January 23, 1934, he had the final drawings and the new Ford ute went into production with Bandt christening his design a ‘coupe-utility’. When the first utes came off the production line in 1934 two were sent to Canada. The car even caught the eye of Henry Ford.

Bandt’s original full-scale blueprint drawings of the 1934 coupe utility are now archived in Australia and the rebuilt version of the Bandt coupe-utility is – appropriately – housed in a museum in the rural country Victorian town of Chewton, near Melbourne.

In its day, the Ford coupe-utility boasted a V8 engine and three-speed manual gearbox while its suspension was by transverse leaf springs with shock absorbers at the front and heavy duty semi-elliptic rear springs and shock absorbers at the rear.

The cabin was the same as the four-door Model 40 Ford five-window coupe. But, instead of the rear luggage compartment or ‘dicky seat’, Bandt added a wooden-framed utility section with steel outer panels welded to the coupe body to form a smooth-sided vehicle.

The result was quickly hailed as the ‘must have’ vehicle for the rural communities and 22,000 were sold between 1940 and 1954.

Lew Bandt’s daughter, Dr Ros Bandt said it was her father’s stunning foresight to marry beautiful design and on-the-ground practicality and make it available to all Ford customers.

“I can't imagine what it must have been like in this pressured war-torn time in the 1930s to have the vision to create an affordable Ute on the land to help with everyday tasks, both work and play and be able to connect over distance,” Dr Bandt said.

“Dad created a brilliant stylish workhorse, which is the legacy he has left to all farmers and owners who enjoy and depend on their utes worldwide. In his words; he wanted the farmer's wife and the pigs to have a glorious ride.”

Lewis Bandt’s coupe utility was a first for Ford Australia and his ingenuity had a great impact on the then developing Australia auto industry.

The original Bandt-designed Ford ute paved the way for what has morphed into what has become some of the world’s biggest selling vehicles – the Pickup or utility. It also spawned the Falcon ute, which has been a firm favourite with customers since the first Falcon XK ute was launched in 1961.

In total, Ford Australia has sold more than 455,000 Falcon utes, among the most popular being the Falcon XB, XF II, AU II, BA and current FG models.

The Australian designed and developed Ford Ranger is also widely sold in more than 180 different countries.

Global truck leadership

Ford sold more than one million trucks globally in 2013, building on the company’s truck leadership that includes:

• Ford pickups globally represent one out of every five pickups sold
• F-Series is the best-selling vehicle in the history of the pickup truck industry with more than 33 million trucks sold – twice as many as the No. 2 vehicle, the Model T (16.5 million)
• F-Series became the world’s best-selling truck in the United States for the 37^th consecutive year and the best-selling vehicle in the country for the 32^th straight year
• Ranger achieved best-ever sales and was Ford’s best-selling vehicle across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2013 and earned “International Pick-Up Award 2013” in Europe
• Ranger was the best-selling vehicle overall in Vietnam, saw sales rise 43 per cent in Thailand and is challenging to become New Zealand’s top-selling truck by overtaking Toyota HiLux in sales six months in the past two years

Happy Birthday Henry Ford

Celebrations at Ford Motor Company’s Dearborn headquarters today are being complemented by a special proclamation by the state of Michigan declaring this “Henry Ford Day.” In Washington, D.C., hundreds downtown and on Capitol Hill will mark the day enjoying commemorative cupcakes delivered by a food truck – part of a mobile movement Henry Ford would support.

While today’s events mark the day of Henry Ford’s birth, they are just part of a yearlong celebration of the man and his achievements.

Appropriately, given Henry Ford’s global impact, the anniversary of his birth is being commemorated in countries around the world throughout 2013. Some of the events include:

• Dealers in 21 Asia Pacific markets have launched Ford Heritage month, transforming showrooms into exhibitions on Ford’s rich history
• Ford of Germany marked the occasion with a series of five road rallies that celebrated Ford’s numerous automotive breakthroughs over the last 110 years
• More than 4,000 people attended community events held by Ford in Romania
• In Great Britain, celebrations were capped by the reveal of a restored statue of Henry Ford at the company’s UK Tech Centre
• In coming months, celebrations will continue with additional events across the United States, Europe and South America.

Contributions to a better world
Henry Ford’s introduction of the automobile into the mass market transformed agricultural economies in the United States and around the world into prosperous industrial and urban markets. Many historians credit him with creating a middle class in America. His high minimum wage – revolutionary at the time – set a precedent for fair distribution of company wealth that influenced later management practices.

Henry Ford initially struggled to get Ford Motor Company on solid financial footing, but broke through with the Model T. The iconic vehicle debuted in October 1908, opening a new era in America. More than 15 million Model T’s were built and sold as Ford Motor Company put the nation on wheels.

The innovative spirit of Henry Ford took root in many other forms after the success of the Model T, including:

Moving assembly line: In 1913 Henry Ford introduced the first moving assembly line for cars. Within 18 months, the amount of time needed to build a Model T was reduced from 12 ½ man-hours to 1 ½ man-hours, ushering in the modern auto industry

• $5 work day: To reduce high turnover rates among workers, Henry Ford more than doubled their pay in 1914, from $2.34 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour day
• Vertical integration: To improve quality, Henry Ford sought to own, operate and coordinate all the resources needed to produce complete automobiles. This principle, known as vertical integration, was put into practice in 1927 with the Model A

“What my great-grandfather established, especially his legacy of innovation, continues to inspire our commitment to a strong business, great products and a better world,” said Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford. “We are putting unexpected levels of technology within reach of millions of people, accelerating the development of new products that customers want and value, and driving growth by creating jobs and bringing the freedom of mobility to the world.”

Spirit of innovation guides Ford today
Henry Ford’s spirit of innovation continues to guide Ford Motor Company today, reflected in a lineup of vehicles as diverse as the F-150 pickup, Mustang sports car and Fusion Hybrid sedan. It lives on in technologies such as Ford SYNC, the company’s in-vehicle infotainment system, and fuel-efficient EcoBoost engines. And it echoes through employees serving customers across six continents.

Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947, at 83. More than 50 years after his death, in 1999, Forbes magazine named him “Businessman of the Century,” and in 2012 a History Channel documentary highlighted him as one of “The Men Who Built America.”

“My great-grandfather’s vision was to improve people’s lives by making cars affordable for the average family,” said Bill Ford. “His vision to build cars that are reasonably priced, reliable and efficient still resonates and defines our vision today.”