I'd love to have one of your mid 50's Ford utes. I have talked to a few guys over there and they say they are all rusted to shit or big $$. I have lots of US cars and parts to trade.. Or maybe after the economy gets going, I'll make some money to buy outright.
The early 50s fords with the removable rear fender inserts seem to have the worst rust. And since utes were used as work trucks they are often missing the tailgates. Here some mid 50s ford pics for you!
GM originally planned to release a U.S. version of the Holden under the Pontiac marquis, they even had one at sema in November. Now that GM is talking about discontinuing the Pontiac, who knows what will happen, in fact, who knows what will happen to GM? I have always thought the ute was great and would have sold well here in the states.
My old 1966 XR ute-351w C4. They were built on a sedan floorpan and if you look under the bed you can see the rear passenger footwell.Very prone to rust-not many falcon utes have survived, Unlike the holden counterparts which are relatively commonplace. I had a 54 mainline(cusso ute) once looked good on the outside but as soon as I dug a bit deeper it was full of rust. Its pretty funny out here everyone wants a coupe(not many brought out) but over the pond the utes are pretty popular.
I did the LHD conversion on a 1958 Holden ute for a mate. As Holden never produced LHD export models till 1961 Was extremly interesting and funny listenng to peoples comments when the car was parked at events. Am looking for some other finished shots
I posted this in the surfer thread, but it fits in here too... 1964, FJ Holden ute, I'm the scrawny barefoot surfer dude on the right. This one needed a safety inspection for registration, but the sub frames were full of rust (unibody) so we filled them with concrete, smoothed it off, gave them a couple of coats of tar paint then threw handfuls of dust onto the wet paint until it was fully coated. It passed the roadworthy without a hitch. Cheers, Glen. Oh yeah, and I forgot about this pic.. 1936 Fargo, so a commercial rather than a passenger car body. Belonged to Bob Brown up at Gosford. 307 Chev, auto, Landcruiser front and rear ends on the original Fargo chassis. He found it in the bush in the middle of nowhere in the 80's, 100% complete, 12 year old papers and rego sticker, brake master cylinder missing and the nuts and spanner still sitting on the firewall. Owner must have broken down and hitched a ride into civilisation to get a repair, and never came back for it.
i wont show my "tonner". its an 83 wb holden. not hamb friendly. i think the word, "ute" is short for utility vehicle.
This one's not a 'ute' either, but I'll bet it was based on a ute body. Apparently the only known example in the world, and it's a HOTROD! Cheers, Glen.
This car was a prototype for the 1958 chevrolet elcamino, GM decided soon they would source there rear wheel drive cars from australia and this would be the first. holden badges were retained for disguise, the final production model was to feature trim used in the specail model and to have a injected 283 engine fitted. wait a minute, no this was the on of the rare holden ute exported to some parts of the USA, this one was brought back to australia and doesnt need to be converted to rhd becuase its more than 25 years old ive heard so much bullshit about that cars history on forums as well as when i was sitting in the gutter next to it at wintersun. it was a export shipped back, it was a export prototype etc, everyone so sure as well its a crack up.
Hi Guys My 1939 Deluxe was done with the skills of Oz40. It's all steel, dropped I-beam front end and runs a 302 Ford with a C4 and 9 inch diff. I noticed there's a pic of a girl sitting in it further on in the thread. Not sure how that got there?? I did take the shot though. It was at Big Al's Poker Run two years ago.
i know where theres a 49 cheby that was built into a pickup by an old farmer. Did a damn good job, for what he had. Its all oxytorched togethor.
Not all utes are as pretty as pictured. Heres my Mainline after a rough drive,the bodty has fallen off the chassis. They called them Mainline because the center X member looks like the main railroad.. A vauxhall ute on the edge of the wheat paddock. ebay potential there..And one in New Zealand in the 1970's.
What timing! I was going to start a post on my new Ute, but I can put it here. It is actually for my wife, she loves these and what good husband would refuse his wife's request for a cool old car? I was going to wait until I get it running, but here are some pics. It is a 37 Chevy Ute, mostly stock original and in real good shape for being a 70 year old work vehicle. I bought it from fellow HAMBer 37coupeute (Tim) after putting a post on here about 5 months ago looking for a Ute. Tim was a great help in getting the car to US. I also helped Tim to get a new car here in the US, he can share pics when it finally gets to Aus, it is in shipping now. My new Ute shared shipping in a 40 ft container with 2 other Utes. Here is my new Ute, pic by Tim before it was shipped: This is from Monday Feb 23rd when I was down in Long Beach to pick up the Ute at the shipper right after rolling out of the container: Since 3 cars will not fit in a 40 ft container without some creative packaging, this is what was behind my car, sorry for the shitty pic with people blocking some, but you get the idea: This is a 37 Willys with a 41 front end, check out the wheels that are rusted flat. This car sat buried up to the frame for 20 years. This will make a very cool rod, the new owner is not leaving it stock,he said he plans a Hemi for it: and The final car that was angled up above the Willys is a 53 Ford, or at least the Ute portion of the Ford, the front sheetmetal is same as the US version. This car belongs to Tony Huntimer, if any of you have the Bonneville Speedweek calendar, he is the one that makes it up and sells it. I have to say public thanks to Tony for first letting me share the container and then second for doing most of the administrative work getting all the shipping set up. Here is Tony's Ford: All of the Utes will be rodded, none left stock. I plan to just get mine running first and enjoy it for a couple years, then get serious.
38Chevy454 Here are some pictures of the 37 sales brochure to go with your new purchase. I have a lot of magazine and newspaper clippings also that I need to scan.
This is as good as place as any to put this somewhat off topic post. Do any Hambers do PERL script? Can help me set up a message board? This is where this post becomes relevant to this thread. I had started setting up a website dedicated to Australian UTEs for American collectors and it has been sitting in waiting for a hell of a long time since I lost my tech guy. I handwrite HTML code and can do everything else but I have no experience in PERL that is the primary code used to set up message boards like this one. I fugure it will be a good place for people interseted in UTEs to gather and share information and educate the masses on what UTEs are. There is not much on the page just the index page to get things started. I still have a lot of original literature, newspaper and magazine ads and images to scan and post but most of the pages are written www.uteusa.com is the website address. If you know anyone that could help have them drop me a line and that might get me rolling again? Thanks
38 chev, did that alternator in the grass come with the car? thought it was an echidna at first! I remember seeing pictures of that willys ute on websites here, it was well and truly up to the axles in sand. but looks like it survived alot better than the photos of it looked. guess the sand drained well so it wasn't sitting wet all the time. all of those will be unusual thats for sure, bound to get some comments. from the smart to the stupid I would think. anyone of you planning on keeping them RHD to really be different?
That is the generator in the grass, one of the things I need to hook up to get it running. The good thing is most of the items to get it running are fairly easy bolt-on type stuff. I am still deciding on whether to keep RHD or not. Since a 37 Chevy Ute is so unusual over here, not like I need RHD to stand out in the crowd. Also since it is for my wife, i may want to make LHD just so less chance of here having troubles
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