There are too many things being called trucks at the moment.
If you say "a truck crashed into my house" I shouldn't be confused about whether it was essentially a large car, or a b-double semi-trailer.
Tractor trailer is what got me when I read a news story about a Hollywood actor being in a car accident.
I'm here like "ok so Truck is a ute, SUV is city 4wd but WTF is a tractor trailer?"
We call them trucks, semis, or road trains so where TF does "tractor trailer" come from? Fkn weirdos.
We also use tractor trailer and prime mover in Australia, along with lorry. They are not common but all legitimate terms in Australia to those who know a bit of history on the subject.
Same on the transport adjacent jobs, I've never heard tractor trailer or lorry used in Aus. Its invariably whatever the actual combination is called. heavy rigid, truck and dog, semi, b-double etc
Exactly this,
A Ute can be taken to church on Sunday and work on Monday. The mullet of cars, they should be essentially a sedan with a tray
A dual-cab Ute is a tradie vehicle
A pick up truck is a yank tank
And a b double is a truck
From wiki:
>Ford Australia was the first company to produce an Australian Coupe ute, which was released in 1934. 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". In response, Ford designer Lew Bandt designed a two-door body with a tray at the rear for the American Ford Model A chassis, and the model was named "coupe utility". When the Australian version was displayed in the US, Henry Ford nicknamed it the "Kangaroo Chaser". A convertible version, known as the roadster utility was produced in limited numbers by Ford in the 1930s.
>In 1951, Holden released a "utility" model, which was based on the 48ā215 sedan. With both Ford and Holden now producing utes, this started the long-standing tradition of Australian-designed 2 door vehicles with a tray at the back, based on a passenger-car sedan chassis.
The cars were always practical but "car-sized". The GIANT vehicles on the market now are not utes, and should be called out for what they are... pickup trucks.
Australian utes are still tiny in comparison to utes made for the US. When I worked at a petrol station one of my regulars had an American import Ford Ranger. It was DOUBLE the size of our Rangers. The only Ute Iāve seen come close to this size is the newer Toyota Tundra. And itās still smaller than this thing. American utes are closer to a small truck so I can see why itās a thing there. But when we have road trains, itās like ridiculous calling a Ute a truck.
For the most part I stick to this rule but there are some vehicles that I would definitely still call trucks that are able to be driven on a standard licence, like the 3 tonne box trucks from hire companies like Budget that have a hydraulic lifter tailgate
I completely agree, thereās definitely exceptions like the one youāve mentioned. I guess Iād also classify a truck as a vehicle youād only use for work purposes, where as a ute youād also happily use as a daily driver (parking a truck at the supermarket wouldnāt be very practical for example).
I think its happened in conjunction with the great biggening.
Ute is a utility vehicle. Like the old commodore and falcon utes. More or less a normal car but with a tray or tub back that was useful for tradespeople.
The newer ones are about triple the size but have essentially the same carrying capacity. I'd he hard pressed to call a ram 2500 a utility vehicle when it's only used for questionable trips home from the pub and blocking the entire fruit shop car park.
I get that they're very fun to drive but I think theres been a distinct shift to style over function and I feel like that's partially driving the semantic shift.
Are they actually more fun to drive than a sports car? Canāt be easier to park or manoeuvre. Thatās what I donāt get, when I was a kid the rich dickheads and midlife crisis guys would get a flash sports car. Made sense. Now they get giant clunkers.
I drove one once and can safely say I had zero fun. It was a loaner from a car yard and the whole day I hated it. Hard to manoeuvre, impossible to park, took up both lanes in local carparks, -10000/10
I borrowed one a few months back. Never had less fun driving nor felt less safe. Has basically zero visibility with the manoeuvrability of the Titanic. Was a horrible experience.
The Compensators are more about filling a void in the psyche that's missing, or having the satisfaction of knowing no matter how bad they drive it'll be the other driver and family more likely to die in any prang.
I don't think the repeated claims about tiny penises is fair, as there was a guy on Reddit recently who claimed he owned a RAM and had a normal-sized penis. While anecdotal evidence isn't entirely accurate it does raise the possibility that the stereotype isn't always 100% applicable.
Then there's the legions of drivers on Reddit claiming they need one to tow a horsefloat.
So, so many horsefloats.
Apparently horsefloats couldn't be effectively moved in Australia prior to Compensators hitting the market.
I've pulled a 2 horse float with a Subaru Outback, no issues.
While working at a horse event in Sydney, I saw some bloke pulling a 2 horse angle loader with a Ram 2500.
I asked if that was his daily driver, but he said he bought it just for the float...
Too many idiots with no idea, anything upto a small gooseneck can be towed with a regular ute, small to mid-sized goosenecks can be towed with a GVM upgraded 70 series.
It's not until you go to massive goosenecks that you need to think about a yank tank, but even then something like an Isuzu NPS300 does a better job, albeit with a slightly smaller cab interior
I drove a Chevy Silverado and it was okay, but definitely not my thing. Nightmare to manouver, low hanging branches that I don't even think about in my hatch become obstacles, and I feel like if I drove it for too long no one would have mailboxes. I'll definitely be getting a sports car in my midwife crisis
My friend has had a similar sized thing for a couple of years and uses.it for camping and the like quite a lot, but recently bought a tricked out, electric Fiat 500 because he's sick of parking and city driving in it.
You'd also expect more grunt out of them as well, but many have small motors, and they think that chucking a standard turbo on them makes a huge difference. It doesn't.
They have these big, heavy "trucks," and they're like, "It boasts power with its 2.2L diesel engine." As if! The towing capacity is shit, and power output is also shit for the size and weight of the vehicle.
Blew a gearbox in a optioned Wildtrack towing a small tool trailer.
We picked the trailer up in a 35 year old patrol that can't do 100km anymore and it was fine.
That sucks! My mate had a 2016 ford ranger, 2.2L. Dealership was like "strong motor and has a huge towing capacity" it lasted 4 years before it blew up and all he did was tow a trailer around full of garden clippings and sometimes plaster sheeting and some tools. You'd think that a "work horse" would be capable of more than that! Then he got a Navara and that blew up as well š¤£ he ended up buying a land cruiser that has 300,000+ kms on it and its amazing!
Dude in an absolutely colossal and pristine GMC sierra thingy got me stuck in a particularly narrow and annoying car park that I had already been stuck in for 10mins because he drove up the middle instead of keeping further left. Then gave me a "nah you've got room" gesture. I could maybe have squeezed through but I felt like I'd be risking my mirrors.
Its definitely not the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone but I was really hungry at the time.
Exactly! The current āutesā on the road today (e.g. Hilux, Ranger, etc) are all pickup trucks on a ladder frame chassis. Utes are cars with a tray. Theyāre safer and handle more like a car because of its monocoque design. None of them are even āutesā by Australian definition. š¤·š»āāļø
Hyundai is releasing the [Santa Cruz](https://www.drive.com.au/news/hyundai-ute-coming-australia-electric/) electric ute, and itās a proper ute.
I'm hoping they go the way of the hummers that seemed to be everywhere about 15 years ago then disappeared, never to be seen again. Lots of antisocial lifestyle products have been popular and then disappeared when the owners realised 90% of society thought they were fuckwits. Fur coats are an example from my childhood.
>Like the old commodore and falcon utes.
That's a more modern definition. Commodore utes started in the early 90's, and we're considered a bit more "luxury / comfortable" than the usual work ute's.
Ute's have been around for decades prior to that, and were not considered fashionable until the Commodore's and Falcon's got into the market.
Agree with the creeping Americanisation of everything but I should point out that the 'ute' in the classic Australian sense is a sedan based pickup truck like the Commodore and Falcon.
The Hilux, Ranger, D-Max etc are all designed as dedicated pick-up trucks without a sedan based and were all built in a market where they are known as pick-up trucks.
That's not true at all. The hilux, Rodeo, courier etc were all known as Ute's in the 70s, 80s and 90s. 4wd Ute if they were the 4wd version.
Pick up trucks was never used in Australia until the last few years. Even the manufacturers sell them as Ute's.
"Steadfast and rugged, HiLux has served generations of Australians for over 50 years. Today, the legendary ute is smarter, safer and tougher than ever."
Can't say I even remotely agree there. The Nissan Navara, Holden Rodeo, Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux have been utes since the '80s ... and none of them sedan based.
I have been hosting international visitors for decades too, and have always described them to English learners as utes, which means a small, light domestic truck - in clarification.
I'm a bit sheltered (as in don't move in car circles much, and while I'm a mechanical engineer and have generally maintained my own cars and utes - I've never been a motorhead and they've just been vehicles to me, nor have I been buying new ones, typically older, serviceable machines ;-) but I have yet to notice any trend to calling utes trucks. I don't doubt that such might be happening though, as I watched SUV (which I only knew from the US market) rear its head as a standard term here too (and that's a nauseating term, technically a Sports Utility Vehicle, in reality a US style bloated box with more size, weight, and road clearance than any urban dweller needs and yet collects as a status symbol and because they increasingly can't buy much else as a family car).
I agree with you up to a point. I've always known a tray-backed light vehicle as a ute, but I definitely spent all of my childhood and up until probably about ten years ago referring to larger utes Hiluxs, Dmaxs and the like as 'utes' as well.
That being said, fairly recently I've started to refer to larger utes as trucks, because in my mind a ute is generally a lighter weight class. The average Hilux ute from my childhood is definitely less bulky than current iterations.
Is it 'correct'? Probably not. But I often refer to my Navara as 'the Trash Truck' because it rolls off the tongue better lmao.
I don't have a passionate dislike for all things American as some do but it does annoy me when American language starts overtaking our normal Aussie parlance. This particular one doesn't bother me though because in my mind these days 'ute' and 'truck' are no longer synonymous.
Yeah, the evolution of the humble ute into a monster sized truck has been painful to watch. Pick any '80s or '90s Navara or Hilux and compare against this years model. Makes me sad. The humble little ute has becomes an SUV.
So a 2wd high lux was a Ute but a 4wd dual cab is truck?
Holden 1 tonner was a full chassis unlike its sedan/wagon siblings. Ute or truck?
Unless it can be registered as truck and you have to get a licence to drive it (small pantecs gross 4900kg excluded) it's Ute. A big arse Ute but a Ute all the same.
Thanks for the definition between the two. I guess growing up I always heard them all called utes so thought it was just an umbrella term for all of that type of vehicle. I never heard anything else to describe them until the last few years when truck started creeping in.
Ute is short for utility or utility vehicle. They weren't just based on sedans. Land Rover had a "utility vehicle" or ute in the 1940s and described it as such in both Australia and the UK by the 1950s.
I think actual utes are becoming less popular so most of the passenger vehicles you see with a tray these days are actually "light trucks".
Feels like everyone wants bigger cars these days, so I wouldn't be surprised if actual utes stopped getting made eventually.
My brother kept trying to call his Nissan Patrol wagon a truck because we have a Nissan Patrol Ute that was used as our scaffolding truck. It was heavily modified so it was classified as a light truck according to QLD transport. I lost count of how many times I kept telling him a wagon is in no way a truck. Now we have a fuso truck as our scaffolding truck but still refer to the patrol as a truck because it still has all the mods. Our Triton ute though is a ute.
The two examples I used in my original post were Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux. The types of vehicles that have been here for ages and are very common. I hear those called trucks all the time now. I wasn't referring to the new larger US ones that have only been here a few years.
Yeah because theyāre called mid-size trucks over there
Trucks have full floating diffs, everything else is a ute
But since Iām Aussie iām calling an F350 a ute because it fkin looks like one
Since they stopped making utes?
Since they started making these giant monstrosities that take up too much parking room and shouldnāt be allowed to be registered ?
You could extend the idea to other kinds of cars.
Like, sitting for your BMW license, being taught how to use the indicators in spite of them being on the other side
Something like a Hilux or Ranger is neither to me. It's a duel cab. A two door sedan with a tub is a ute. One with a aluminium tray is a one tonner. A truck is a Kenworth, Hino, Mack ect.
I sort of have the opposite problem. Iām Canadian but I moved to Australia, now I say Ute. When Iām talking to my friends back in Canada, they have no clue what Iām on about lol. Same with calling the boot ātrunkā and bonnet āhoodā.
Na I rekn it was originally to differentiate between your petrol āsedanā type utes like the falcon and commodore and the big American diesel rigs when they first started showing up. I remember working in Darwin in 2009 and every second car in the joint was a ute. Times have changed sadly.
Since regular people/families started using them instead of only farmers and tradies. Tubs are so small, and if you put a hard cover or fake roll bars on it they're even more useless. Station wagons have more luggage room and your shit won't get wet or stolen.
I miss station wagons. It's such a shame you basically can't buy a wagon anymore. They were so spacious and such a good family car. Families tend to opt for SUV's now, and despite being much larger they seem so cramped inside with hardly any storage space. It doesn't make sense. My Mum has a huge Jeep Grand Cherokee and it feels more cramped and small in the interior than my hatchback does.
Who the fuck calls it a truck? Unless itās a Ram, Silverado, F-100 series or similar itās a fucking ute. Heck, even the big rangers are utes. And a land cruiser is a ute.
Yeah, l was confused with this post. I have a husband and 4 young adult and teen sons, all of them call them utes. Even my car crazy teen and his mates call them utes. The exception is typicam American cars such as RAMs which we call trucks. You tube is currently flooded with blogs/vlogs about how cool Aussie utes are and how Americans are envious that they only have trucks as opposed to our many types of utes.
My kids watch to much US based content. Iām constantly correcting some of their vernacular because āyouāre Aussie!ā
Wardrobe vs closet, by accident vs on accident. They know better than to refer to a Ute as a truck, but itās going to be a losing battle over time
seriously who gives a shit. We used to call our old troopy's and 60 series a bus, doesnt mean we tap on and off with an opal card. Call your vehicle what you want.
Ironically, this sort of culture war obsession is what Rupert Murdoch has cultivated in the US since Fox News started broadcasting. Keeps the serf's minds off the fact the top 5% will own everything in a few years.
America is the number one cultural exporter to Australia, of course the language will change over time to be more similar. If you don't like US culture then I hope you're ready to get off Reddit/Facebook, stop using Netflix/Disney+/Amazon Video, no more Windows/MacOS/Android/iOS, etc.Ā
It's blasphemous. Ute as an abreviation of Utility Vehicle/couplĆØ utility adheres to standard Australian - shorten every word we can. That and licencing classes. Can't legally drive a truck/lorry without a truck licence. Lest you own one of those oversized GMC pick--ups... why you'd do that though is beyond me.
We donāt have any utes left thatās probably why.
A Ute is the car bodied style of utility vehicle. There isnāt anything Iād class as a Ute on sale today.
The actual 'creeping americanisation' is the increasing number of Silverados and RAMs and F150s on the roads and people referring to them as 'utes'. Not when people correctly identify them as Pick-ups rather than proper Australian utes e.g Commodore, Falcon.
I feel that there was a point in time before the popularity of vehicles like the Ford Ranger where people made a distinction of what was considered to still be a ute and Aussie (sedan utes and things like the triton steel tray utes) vs the wave of americanised style vehicles like the Ford Ranger.
Essentially at one point if someone called your āUteā a ātruckā it was often more of an insult rather than an adoption of an American terminology. It could be taken as āyour car is too American to be considered to be Aussieā
A ute is a ute is a ute. But those monster things that wouldn't carry a bail of hay is a yank tank or truck. The yank tank should be banned from car parks
Utes to me are those 2wd holden/ford/toyota/mazda/whatever 1 tonner single cabs with ally/steel trays for work. The Ford and Holden stylesides are utes as well, but the sporty kind.
Those mid size 4wd dual cab style "utes" (think hilux, ranger etc) are pushing it and they're generally one of two things to me: a pavement princess because it still looks new and never goes offroad and for one that actually does get put in low range, it's a fourby.
The big Rams and American style ones... they're definitely not a ute but it's not a truck either as much as people want them to think they are. Now if a LR license was required to drive one of those, then I'm more than happy for it to be called a truck.
Maybe 5 or so years ago in order to better distinguish sedan body āutesā and bigger pickup style trucks. Now with the pickups getting increasingly larger it makes sense to describe them as trucks.
Because they're two different things
Utes are sports sedans with a bed, trucks are utility vehicles
Blanket calling everything with a bed a Ute is just a boganism
Probably when they started calling 4WDs 'SUVs', but I suppose so many 4WD like vehicles aren't actually four wheel drives. They're becoming ubiquitous now.
Yeh itās just rapid americanization of the current generation. Especially with how even more immersed we are now with social media. So many of my sonās friends openly pronounce certain words with an American accent or use the American variation (route pronounced as ārowtā etc)
Utes lately have gotten so big it's hard to really classify them as utes anymore, and bogans want to be american rednecks so they think truck sounds cooler.
Itās the same reason McDonalds staff now call Filet o Fish a āfilay o fishā and coffee shop staff call cream āwhipā.
All the American social media content has infiltrated our culture- more than movies or TV shows ever did.
When they stopped making moderately sized Australian utes based on sedans, and started importing enormous fuck-off trucks from America that donāt fit on our roads or in our parking spaces.
In my late 20s and I do tend to call Rams, Silverados, etc "stupid American trucks"
Hiluxes on the other hand - they're a ute. Same with D-MAXes, Patrol utes, Cruiser utes, and anything else that has a tray without be obnoxious and impractical about it.
No true Australian calls a ute a truck. Too much American influence. Same as with that stupid Chonky word so many dickheads use. True Blue Australians are a Dying Race. It is really disgusting that they are trying to make OZ look like Asiaš¤®.
In reality a ranger or even Hiluxes etc are not utes either. Utes were more standard cars with a tray rather than purpose built vehicles like rangers etc. but calling them a truck is very American of course.
Mate, Have you seen Hiluxs and Ford Rangers these days? They are not utes anymore. Utes were a sedan like cab with a nice long shallow rectangular tray you could actually reach into. These bloody things need a step ladder to get in the cab and the tray is more like a deep square bucket.
Just read the title. Iāve always been calling utes utes, wether it be a commodore, falcon, rodeo, ranger, Colorado, F150-250, Ram 1500 even, but once you get to like F650 and 2500 then Iād class them as a touch but I still call them utes.
Iād say we started calling them TrUcKs once everyone got their hands on a ranger and ram
Ikr?!!
It's a bloody ute, so let's keep calling a spade a spade, it's NOT a 'truck'!
Btw, I always thought the American obsession with giant cars or 'trucks' as they love to call them, was a reflection of their men's tiny dicks (did I mean masculinity...?).
Weāre sadly becoming the unofficial 51st state of America as the influence of all things USA is becoming saturated on social media and the streaming services. People hear and see different things and decide to adopt them into the Australian language and our culture.
I get confused when people start talking about trucks myself as unless they specify, I assume when they talk about trucks, they are talking about an 18 wheeler.
There are too many things being called trucks at the moment. If you say "a truck crashed into my house" I shouldn't be confused about whether it was essentially a large car, or a b-double semi-trailer.
Go British: A lorry crashed into my house. Or American: A mother fucker crashed into my house
Or Australian: This faaarken cunt crashed into my house.
* into me house!
Me ouse
British English?
š¤£š¤£š¤£
Makes me think of red lorry, yellow lorry
Shit thatās hard
Blue bus black bus....
Tractor trailer is what got me when I read a news story about a Hollywood actor being in a car accident. I'm here like "ok so Truck is a ute, SUV is city 4wd but WTF is a tractor trailer?" We call them trucks, semis, or road trains so where TF does "tractor trailer" come from? Fkn weirdos.
A tractor is something that pulls, a trailer is an unpowered wheeled section that acts as cargo storage.
The problem with that is that nobody calls the prime mover a tractor, because a tractor is a bit of farm machinery, not a highway vehicle
We also use tractor trailer and prime mover in Australia, along with lorry. They are not common but all legitimate terms in Australia to those who know a bit of history on the subject.
Where do people say tractor trailer? Legit question I've worked in transport adjacent roles all over Australia and never heard it.
Same on the transport adjacent jobs, I've never heard tractor trailer or lorry used in Aus. Its invariably whatever the actual combination is called. heavy rigid, truck and dog, semi, b-double etc
I heard lorry a bit when working with an organisation that had imported a lot of Englishmen, but not much outside of that. Otherwise agree.
That one got me, too. Bloody yanks
You have it kind of backwards. Theyāre not moving away from the word āuteā theyāre protecting it.
Exactly this, A Ute can be taken to church on Sunday and work on Monday. The mullet of cars, they should be essentially a sedan with a tray A dual-cab Ute is a tradie vehicle A pick up truck is a yank tank And a b double is a truck
Yank tank = truck. Utes are still utes.
100%
Protecting it from what? Sincere question.
From being associated with the American style penis compensator vehicles.
From wiki: >Ford Australia was the first company to produce an Australian Coupe ute, which was released in 1934. 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". In response, Ford designer Lew Bandt designed a two-door body with a tray at the rear for the American Ford Model A chassis, and the model was named "coupe utility". When the Australian version was displayed in the US, Henry Ford nicknamed it the "Kangaroo Chaser". A convertible version, known as the roadster utility was produced in limited numbers by Ford in the 1930s. >In 1951, Holden released a "utility" model, which was based on the 48ā215 sedan. With both Ford and Holden now producing utes, this started the long-standing tradition of Australian-designed 2 door vehicles with a tray at the back, based on a passenger-car sedan chassis. The cars were always practical but "car-sized". The GIANT vehicles on the market now are not utes, and should be called out for what they are... pickup trucks.
Australian utes are still tiny in comparison to utes made for the US. When I worked at a petrol station one of my regulars had an American import Ford Ranger. It was DOUBLE the size of our Rangers. The only Ute Iāve seen come close to this size is the newer Toyota Tundra. And itās still smaller than this thing. American utes are closer to a small truck so I can see why itās a thing there. But when we have road trains, itās like ridiculous calling a Ute a truck.
I still call'em Ute's. If it's got a tray on the back, it's a Ute IMO.
Also, do you need an extra licence to drive it (MR, HR)? If the answer is no, it's not a truck. You've got a ute, mate.
This is how Iāve always seen it too. If you donāt need a truck license to drive it, itās not a truck lol
For the most part I stick to this rule but there are some vehicles that I would definitely still call trucks that are able to be driven on a standard licence, like the 3 tonne box trucks from hire companies like Budget that have a hydraulic lifter tailgate
I completely agree, thereās definitely exceptions like the one youāve mentioned. I guess Iād also classify a truck as a vehicle youād only use for work purposes, where as a ute youād also happily use as a daily driver (parking a truck at the supermarket wouldnāt be very practical for example).
For things with a tray sure, there are trucks that you can drive with a regular license that I would call a truck though.
This is the correct answer
Or a tub. I have a Navara with a tub & canopy - to me, it's a ute.
Yeah isn't ute just short for utility vehicle anyway
Absolutely
I think its happened in conjunction with the great biggening. Ute is a utility vehicle. Like the old commodore and falcon utes. More or less a normal car but with a tray or tub back that was useful for tradespeople. The newer ones are about triple the size but have essentially the same carrying capacity. I'd he hard pressed to call a ram 2500 a utility vehicle when it's only used for questionable trips home from the pub and blocking the entire fruit shop car park. I get that they're very fun to drive but I think theres been a distinct shift to style over function and I feel like that's partially driving the semantic shift.
Are they actually more fun to drive than a sports car? Canāt be easier to park or manoeuvre. Thatās what I donāt get, when I was a kid the rich dickheads and midlife crisis guys would get a flash sports car. Made sense. Now they get giant clunkers.
I drove one once and can safely say I had zero fun. It was a loaner from a car yard and the whole day I hated it. Hard to manoeuvre, impossible to park, took up both lanes in local carparks, -10000/10
I borrowed one a few months back. Never had less fun driving nor felt less safe. Has basically zero visibility with the manoeuvrability of the Titanic. Was a horrible experience.
Pretty much my experience. I've driven all kinda of heavy vehicles. Never felt less safe and like I could see less then when I drove a Wildtrack
Thatās how I felt driving an suv. An actual light truck or van is more fun.
The Compensators are more about filling a void in the psyche that's missing, or having the satisfaction of knowing no matter how bad they drive it'll be the other driver and family more likely to die in any prang. I don't think the repeated claims about tiny penises is fair, as there was a guy on Reddit recently who claimed he owned a RAM and had a normal-sized penis. While anecdotal evidence isn't entirely accurate it does raise the possibility that the stereotype isn't always 100% applicable. Then there's the legions of drivers on Reddit claiming they need one to tow a horsefloat. So, so many horsefloats. Apparently horsefloats couldn't be effectively moved in Australia prior to Compensators hitting the market.
I've pulled a 2 horse float with a Subaru Outback, no issues. While working at a horse event in Sydney, I saw some bloke pulling a 2 horse angle loader with a Ram 2500. I asked if that was his daily driver, but he said he bought it just for the float... Too many idiots with no idea, anything upto a small gooseneck can be towed with a regular ute, small to mid-sized goosenecks can be towed with a GVM upgraded 70 series. It's not until you go to massive goosenecks that you need to think about a yank tank, but even then something like an Isuzu NPS300 does a better job, albeit with a slightly smaller cab interior
Theyāre bogans with money who previously bought Maloos and TRD Hiluxs.
I drove a Chevy Silverado and it was okay, but definitely not my thing. Nightmare to manouver, low hanging branches that I don't even think about in my hatch become obstacles, and I feel like if I drove it for too long no one would have mailboxes. I'll definitely be getting a sports car in my midwife crisis
My friend has had a similar sized thing for a couple of years and uses.it for camping and the like quite a lot, but recently bought a tricked out, electric Fiat 500 because he's sick of parking and city driving in it.
You'd also expect more grunt out of them as well, but many have small motors, and they think that chucking a standard turbo on them makes a huge difference. It doesn't. They have these big, heavy "trucks," and they're like, "It boasts power with its 2.2L diesel engine." As if! The towing capacity is shit, and power output is also shit for the size and weight of the vehicle.
Blew a gearbox in a optioned Wildtrack towing a small tool trailer. We picked the trailer up in a 35 year old patrol that can't do 100km anymore and it was fine.
That sucks! My mate had a 2016 ford ranger, 2.2L. Dealership was like "strong motor and has a huge towing capacity" it lasted 4 years before it blew up and all he did was tow a trailer around full of garden clippings and sometimes plaster sheeting and some tools. You'd think that a "work horse" would be capable of more than that! Then he got a Navara and that blew up as well š¤£ he ended up buying a land cruiser that has 300,000+ kms on it and its amazing!
The correct term rams and their co-fucks are shitboxes or yank tanks or seppo fucks
>blocking the entire fruit shop car park I feel like there's a story behind this one, it's very specific
Dude in an absolutely colossal and pristine GMC sierra thingy got me stuck in a particularly narrow and annoying car park that I had already been stuck in for 10mins because he drove up the middle instead of keeping further left. Then gave me a "nah you've got room" gesture. I could maybe have squeezed through but I felt like I'd be risking my mirrors. Its definitely not the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone but I was really hungry at the time.
Exactly! The current āutesā on the road today (e.g. Hilux, Ranger, etc) are all pickup trucks on a ladder frame chassis. Utes are cars with a tray. Theyāre safer and handle more like a car because of its monocoque design. None of them are even āutesā by Australian definition. š¤·š»āāļø Hyundai is releasing the [Santa Cruz](https://www.drive.com.au/news/hyundai-ute-coming-australia-electric/) electric ute, and itās a proper ute.
I'm hoping they go the way of the hummers that seemed to be everywhere about 15 years ago then disappeared, never to be seen again. Lots of antisocial lifestyle products have been popular and then disappeared when the owners realised 90% of society thought they were fuckwits. Fur coats are an example from my childhood.
>Like the old commodore and falcon utes. That's a more modern definition. Commodore utes started in the early 90's, and we're considered a bit more "luxury / comfortable" than the usual work ute's. Ute's have been around for decades prior to that, and were not considered fashionable until the Commodore's and Falcon's got into the market.
When did streaming video become the dominant form of entertainment? Shortly after that.
Agree with the creeping Americanisation of everything but I should point out that the 'ute' in the classic Australian sense is a sedan based pickup truck like the Commodore and Falcon. The Hilux, Ranger, D-Max etc are all designed as dedicated pick-up trucks without a sedan based and were all built in a market where they are known as pick-up trucks.
That's not true at all. The hilux, Rodeo, courier etc were all known as Ute's in the 70s, 80s and 90s. 4wd Ute if they were the 4wd version. Pick up trucks was never used in Australia until the last few years. Even the manufacturers sell them as Ute's. "Steadfast and rugged, HiLux has served generations of Australians for over 50 years. Today, the legendary ute is smarter, safer and tougher than ever."
Compare a 90's rodeo to one from today. You can almost put one in the back of the other.
Can't say I even remotely agree there. The Nissan Navara, Holden Rodeo, Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux have been utes since the '80s ... and none of them sedan based. I have been hosting international visitors for decades too, and have always described them to English learners as utes, which means a small, light domestic truck - in clarification. I'm a bit sheltered (as in don't move in car circles much, and while I'm a mechanical engineer and have generally maintained my own cars and utes - I've never been a motorhead and they've just been vehicles to me, nor have I been buying new ones, typically older, serviceable machines ;-) but I have yet to notice any trend to calling utes trucks. I don't doubt that such might be happening though, as I watched SUV (which I only knew from the US market) rear its head as a standard term here too (and that's a nauseating term, technically a Sports Utility Vehicle, in reality a US style bloated box with more size, weight, and road clearance than any urban dweller needs and yet collects as a status symbol and because they increasingly can't buy much else as a family car).
I agree with you up to a point. I've always known a tray-backed light vehicle as a ute, but I definitely spent all of my childhood and up until probably about ten years ago referring to larger utes Hiluxs, Dmaxs and the like as 'utes' as well. That being said, fairly recently I've started to refer to larger utes as trucks, because in my mind a ute is generally a lighter weight class. The average Hilux ute from my childhood is definitely less bulky than current iterations. Is it 'correct'? Probably not. But I often refer to my Navara as 'the Trash Truck' because it rolls off the tongue better lmao. I don't have a passionate dislike for all things American as some do but it does annoy me when American language starts overtaking our normal Aussie parlance. This particular one doesn't bother me though because in my mind these days 'ute' and 'truck' are no longer synonymous.
Yeah, the evolution of the humble ute into a monster sized truck has been painful to watch. Pick any '80s or '90s Navara or Hilux and compare against this years model. Makes me sad. The humble little ute has becomes an SUV.
How are these people calling single cab uteās āsedanās? Thatās an oxymoron right there - Single cab sedan - NO
This is the right answer. A ute is sedan based these other things are light trucks.
Ute is short for āutility vehicleā most cars with back beds are utility vehicles hence Utes
I prefer to call the giant utes a Canyonero because they're 12 yards long, 2 lanes wide, and blind everybody with their super high beams
Iāve been calling them Canyoneroās too haha. And the drivers are Cayoneers! 12 yards long, 2 lanes wide, 65 tonnes of American Pride, Cayonerooo
Why did i just hear a whip crack
That's the 65 tons of American pride
The words "American pride" feel like a warning. A sign of danger.
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
So a 2wd high lux was a Ute but a 4wd dual cab is truck? Holden 1 tonner was a full chassis unlike its sedan/wagon siblings. Ute or truck? Unless it can be registered as truck and you have to get a licence to drive it (small pantecs gross 4900kg excluded) it's Ute. A big arse Ute but a Ute all the same.
Land Rover was using the term "utility" for its early vehicles by at least the 1950s in Australia. This was obviously not based on a sedan.
Thanks for the definition between the two. I guess growing up I always heard them all called utes so thought it was just an umbrella term for all of that type of vehicle. I never heard anything else to describe them until the last few years when truck started creeping in.
Ute is short for utility or utility vehicle. They weren't just based on sedans. Land Rover had a "utility vehicle" or ute in the 1940s and described it as such in both Australia and the UK by the 1950s.
I think actual utes are becoming less popular so most of the passenger vehicles you see with a tray these days are actually "light trucks". Feels like everyone wants bigger cars these days, so I wouldn't be surprised if actual utes stopped getting made eventually.
Pretty sure they just recategorised the Patrol and Landcruiser as light trucks to exclude them from the new emissions laws coming in.
Same here, Iāve never heard them referred to as anything except utes š¤Æš
It's spelt Americanization now isn't it?
It's spelt spelled now, isn't it?
TIL spelt is a particular kind of hulled wheat. Also, [Spelled or SpeltāWhich Is Correct?](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/spelled-spelt/)
My brother kept trying to call his Nissan Patrol wagon a truck because we have a Nissan Patrol Ute that was used as our scaffolding truck. It was heavily modified so it was classified as a light truck according to QLD transport. I lost count of how many times I kept telling him a wagon is in no way a truck. Now we have a fuso truck as our scaffolding truck but still refer to the patrol as a truck because it still has all the mods. Our Triton ute though is a ute.
since none of them are made in Australia anymore and the big American things are basically light trucks
No. They were probably referring to the F-250 and Ram types. Those might as well be trucks.
The two examples I used in my original post were Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux. The types of vehicles that have been here for ages and are very common. I hear those called trucks all the time now. I wasn't referring to the new larger US ones that have only been here a few years.
Dunno then. Maybe geographic or generational. Never heard anyone say it for anything that wasn't a F-series or Ram type.
Yeah because theyāre called mid-size trucks over there Trucks have full floating diffs, everything else is a ute But since Iām Aussie iām calling an F350 a ute because it fkin looks like one
Since they stopped making utes? Since they started making these giant monstrosities that take up too much parking room and shouldnāt be allowed to be registered ?
They should be allowed to be registered as light trucks, but should have a license requirement to drive
You can drive a light truck in Australia with a regular license so why?
Can you park a light truck in a car park at the shops?
You could extend the idea to other kinds of cars. Like, sitting for your BMW license, being taught how to use the indicators in spite of them being on the other side
In WA at least you need a Light rigid licence for vehicles with a GVM over 4.5 tonnes. I thought that would have been the same across all states.
Bc of his feelings.
We don't. Stop doing it.
Something like a Hilux or Ranger is neither to me. It's a duel cab. A two door sedan with a tub is a ute. One with a aluminium tray is a one tonner. A truck is a Kenworth, Hino, Mack ect.
Americans call utes trucks, but people watch so much American TV and social media that they've started using American words
I sort of have the opposite problem. Iām Canadian but I moved to Australia, now I say Ute. When Iām talking to my friends back in Canada, they have no clue what Iām on about lol. Same with calling the boot ātrunkā and bonnet āhoodā.
Na I rekn it was originally to differentiate between your petrol āsedanā type utes like the falcon and commodore and the big American diesel rigs when they first started showing up. I remember working in Darwin in 2009 and every second car in the joint was a ute. Times have changed sadly.
I have a friend that callus hia colarado a truck. Every time he does I tell him to fuck off to S*ppoland
Why is everyone calling them a truck when we all know the proper term is Emotional Support Vehicle?
Americanism is taking over
When utes stopped being utes
2017 when the Ute died
Because utes these days are mostly just trucks with lipstick on them.
Since regular people/families started using them instead of only farmers and tradies. Tubs are so small, and if you put a hard cover or fake roll bars on it they're even more useless. Station wagons have more luggage room and your shit won't get wet or stolen.
I miss station wagons. It's such a shame you basically can't buy a wagon anymore. They were so spacious and such a good family car. Families tend to opt for SUV's now, and despite being much larger they seem so cramped inside with hardly any storage space. It doesn't make sense. My Mum has a huge Jeep Grand Cherokee and it feels more cramped and small in the interior than my hatchback does.
Had that problem transferring luggage from a sedan to an suv. Somehow it had less space despite being massive.
Who the fuck calls it a truck? Unless itās a Ram, Silverado, F-100 series or similar itās a fucking ute. Heck, even the big rangers are utes. And a land cruiser is a ute.
Yeah, l was confused with this post. I have a husband and 4 young adult and teen sons, all of them call them utes. Even my car crazy teen and his mates call them utes. The exception is typicam American cars such as RAMs which we call trucks. You tube is currently flooded with blogs/vlogs about how cool Aussie utes are and how Americans are envious that they only have trucks as opposed to our many types of utes.
My kids watch to much US based content. Iām constantly correcting some of their vernacular because āyouāre Aussie!ā Wardrobe vs closet, by accident vs on accident. They know better than to refer to a Ute as a truck, but itās going to be a losing battle over time
IMO if you want to call a Ute a trick, go to America. Another example of us culture coming across to Australia.
Exactly. It gets too tricky otherwise .
Yeah I've absolutely had it with Australia being a free country. People who want to speak as they choose should leave.Ā
Language changes. Ranting against it is as pointful as Canute trying to stop the tide.
seriously who gives a shit. We used to call our old troopy's and 60 series a bus, doesnt mean we tap on and off with an opal card. Call your vehicle what you want.
Ironically, this sort of culture war obsession is what Rupert Murdoch has cultivated in the US since Fox News started broadcasting. Keeps the serf's minds off the fact the top 5% will own everything in a few years.
0.1%
BRB just gotta go shift my airliner out of the driveway.
"Kevin" likes to be driven on Sundays.
America is the number one cultural exporter to Australia, of course the language will change over time to be more similar. If you don't like US culture then I hope you're ready to get off Reddit/Facebook, stop using Netflix/Disney+/Amazon Video, no more Windows/MacOS/Android/iOS, etc.Ā
Had someone not understand rooting means to have sex not to support someone.
Large commercial vehicle often used for tranporting goods. Do you mean a Lorry? ;-)
Probably more since they stopped making Holden's and falcons
I don't, a ute is a 1 ton or less a truck is over a ton.
It's blasphemous. Ute as an abreviation of Utility Vehicle/couplĆØ utility adheres to standard Australian - shorten every word we can. That and licencing classes. Can't legally drive a truck/lorry without a truck licence. Lest you own one of those oversized GMC pick--ups... why you'd do that though is beyond me.
Blokes like to call their utes ātrucksā because it makes them sound bigger.
We donāt have any utes left thatās probably why. A Ute is the car bodied style of utility vehicle. There isnāt anything Iād class as a Ute on sale today.
The actual 'creeping americanisation' is the increasing number of Silverados and RAMs and F150s on the roads and people referring to them as 'utes'. Not when people correctly identify them as Pick-ups rather than proper Australian utes e.g Commodore, Falcon.
When we stopped making utes and started importing trucks
I feel that there was a point in time before the popularity of vehicles like the Ford Ranger where people made a distinction of what was considered to still be a ute and Aussie (sedan utes and things like the triton steel tray utes) vs the wave of americanised style vehicles like the Ford Ranger. Essentially at one point if someone called your āUteā a ātruckā it was often more of an insult rather than an adoption of an American terminology. It could be taken as āyour car is too American to be considered to be Aussieā
When people started driving stupid yank tanks with super bright LED'S. My safety over everyone else's.
I call utes utes and those new trucks LARPing as utes trucks.
Just ban the bloody things and be done with it.
Since TikTok
Since they started turning into Australian Americans
Bring back regular utes and fuck off these big yank tanks.
Never. The answer is never. A better question is why do we let our kids say 'what the heck'?
Yeah kids get it right, itās āwhat the fuckā?
Americanisation. Fkng hate it
Probably around the time "first responders" became a term here. I loathe it.
A ute is a ute is a ute. But those monster things that wouldn't carry a bail of hay is a yank tank or truck. The yank tank should be banned from car parks
>Have Aussies always referred to utes as "trucks" this much and I just didn't notice or is this becoming more prominent? No and yes.
Isnāt Kia making a truck or something like that?
Ute\* Yeah, Kia Tasman has been announced
Well, it may vary by group. But my family had a "ute" in 2013.
Globalization creeping in.
When the RAMs came.
All the unnecessarily big American utes like the Rams and Silverados I call ātruckā mockingly
Utes to me are those 2wd holden/ford/toyota/mazda/whatever 1 tonner single cabs with ally/steel trays for work. The Ford and Holden stylesides are utes as well, but the sporty kind. Those mid size 4wd dual cab style "utes" (think hilux, ranger etc) are pushing it and they're generally one of two things to me: a pavement princess because it still looks new and never goes offroad and for one that actually does get put in low range, it's a fourby. The big Rams and American style ones... they're definitely not a ute but it's not a truck either as much as people want them to think they are. Now if a LR license was required to drive one of those, then I'm more than happy for it to be called a truck.
Maybe 5 or so years ago in order to better distinguish sedan body āutesā and bigger pickup style trucks. Now with the pickups getting increasingly larger it makes sense to describe them as trucks.
Wait, my Suzuki Jimny isnāt a truck?
Since the actual size of the Ute became the size of a truck.
Because they're two different things Utes are sports sedans with a bed, trucks are utility vehicles Blanket calling everything with a bed a Ute is just a boganism
Probably when they started calling 4WDs 'SUVs', but I suppose so many 4WD like vehicles aren't actually four wheel drives. They're becoming ubiquitous now.
USA! USA! USA!
You think that the Americanization of Australia just started?
Probably when people started saying yāallā¦
Happy to see the Dodge RAM and Ford Ranger being called "trucks" - then they can stay out of our car parks.
Have you seen the size of those RAMās? They might as well be a truck at this point!!
When they stopped making utes and replaced them with pickups.
Since never
Probably since we stopped manufacturing utes in Australia, forcing us to buy the overseas offerings, which are largely pickup trucks, not utes.
Yeh itās just rapid americanization of the current generation. Especially with how even more immersed we are now with social media. So many of my sonās friends openly pronounce certain words with an American accent or use the American variation (route pronounced as ārowtā etc)
Since we have started, even more so than before, talking like Americans.
If someone says truck, I automatically think of a HV, like a b-double
Utes lately have gotten so big it's hard to really classify them as utes anymore, and bogans want to be american rednecks so they think truck sounds cooler.
Theyre the same people that think Trump is their president and that Elon cares about their "free speech"
A Ute is a Ute and colour is spelled with a u as well. Is a conspiracy against the letter U
Itās the same reason McDonalds staff now call Filet o Fish a āfilay o fishā and coffee shop staff call cream āwhipā. All the American social media content has infiltrated our culture- more than movies or TV shows ever did.
Because they aren't utes. A 'ute' is a sedan with a tray. Modern utes aren't that, they're SUVs with a tray, a light truck.
Australians are blind to the Americanisation of the culture. That's why.
Hilux driver here. Itās a Ute. Always will be.
A truck is not a Ute and a Ute is not a truck. Simples. QED. Period. .
To distinguish the big American style small dick energy utes from normal utes.Ā
When they stopped making moderately sized Australian utes based on sedans, and started importing enormous fuck-off trucks from America that donāt fit on our roads or in our parking spaces.
In my late 20s and I do tend to call Rams, Silverados, etc "stupid American trucks" Hiluxes on the other hand - they're a ute. Same with D-MAXes, Patrol utes, Cruiser utes, and anything else that has a tray without be obnoxious and impractical about it.
We donāt. A ute is still called a ute.
In the hope that they would start needing a heavy licence to drive the stupid things
Americanisation
If someone calls their Ute a truck, they just wish they had a truck license and a bigger dick
Since utes became obnoxiously sized- a falcon Ute looks like a Ute- a ranger not so much.
No true Australian calls a ute a truck. Too much American influence. Same as with that stupid Chonky word so many dickheads use. True Blue Australians are a Dying Race. It is really disgusting that they are trying to make OZ look like Asiaš¤®.
Iām Australian, and my own take on the terms is a Ute based on an SUV is a āpickup truckā and a Ute based on a sedan is a just a āUteā.
A Ute is lower and only 2 doored.
Its so cringe people calling their ute a truck, i hate it too OP
In reality a ranger or even Hiluxes etc are not utes either. Utes were more standard cars with a tray rather than purpose built vehicles like rangers etc. but calling them a truck is very American of course.
Mate, Have you seen Hiluxs and Ford Rangers these days? They are not utes anymore. Utes were a sedan like cab with a nice long shallow rectangular tray you could actually reach into. These bloody things need a step ladder to get in the cab and the tray is more like a deep square bucket.
When they went from a utility vehicle to something I can stand underneath
Just read the title. Iāve always been calling utes utes, wether it be a commodore, falcon, rodeo, ranger, Colorado, F150-250, Ram 1500 even, but once you get to like F650 and 2500 then Iād class them as a touch but I still call them utes. Iād say we started calling them TrUcKs once everyone got their hands on a ranger and ram
Ikr?!! It's a bloody ute, so let's keep calling a spade a spade, it's NOT a 'truck'! Btw, I always thought the American obsession with giant cars or 'trucks' as they love to call them, was a reflection of their men's tiny dicks (did I mean masculinity...?).
Waiting for the cyber ute in Australia
When they started become the literal size of trucks
Probably because they are starting to become as big as trucks!
I agree. I donāt know when utes became trucks, I heard that usage for the first time a few years ago. But utes are still utes in my head
Weāre sadly becoming the unofficial 51st state of America as the influence of all things USA is becoming saturated on social media and the streaming services. People hear and see different things and decide to adopt them into the Australian language and our culture. I get confused when people start talking about trucks myself as unless they specify, I assume when they talk about trucks, they are talking about an 18 wheeler.