I was going to contribute and post all my ute pictures that I posted on another site but some one has saved them all and has already beat me to it, including pics of my own cars...Oh well, saves me doing it.
Anybody know if the ute's were build by independent body shops or did they actually come from the car manufactures? What made me wonder is the fact that some are like 5w coupe pickups while others look like the unibody ford pickups of the 60s or elcaminos an rancheros! Just wondering! Any more pics of IH utes? Klaus
I think mars said he sold it to a mate of his, its still around sitting in a shed somewhere in primer maybe? last time i seen it, it had pro stars on it ( ) then it vanished
Hey I really like these cars,very cool! I have a 1956 DeSoto 4 Door that I want to make into a UTE or what ever you want to call it. I have a 76 El-Camino that I'm going to use the bed insert from. Do you have any more close up pictures of the back of yours.
Ha! Ha! The Aussie Falcon Ranchero looks like a cut down four door to me with the short doors and strange looking b-pillar. This works out well. We don't have to argue over who gets which Falcon Ranchero! JH
Agreed. The U.S. version looks more proportionally correct. The Oz Ranchero looks like some one cut up a 2 door station wagon. The B-pillar looks like an after thought that didn't quite work. I love every Ute but that one.
WINNER WINNER WINNER!! This is just so Queensland. Body by Hooper? I need one, bad! One bad ass funky ute.
See, but in our eyes, we are use to how 'ours' looks and I reckon our local version is a better looking car hands down. I just dont think the thinner, almost vertical 'B' pillar looks good. Thank god we all like different things! JM2cW!
Didn,t it get smashed at some time? I think it may have also had a chop, though I may me wrong. Either way its never been the same since, pity.
MoparFinman: Thanks for the intrest in my 56. I used a 69-72 ElCamino back window and part of the rear inner bed sides to the wheel well on the 56. The back part of the station wagon was already metal. I did form my own top rails and used pickup truck floor material. Since I am not shy about using my bed, it has 4 tiedowns mounted in the sides and is coated in bedliner material tinted with the gray body color. My first haul was a restored John Deere pedal tractor I did for my grandsons birthday. There should still be some pictures here on the HAMB that my buddy Moparron posted during my build. Search under "My friends 56 ElCamino". Here are a few more I had in my file.
Here are the two that I imported to Iowa from down under. The Plymouth I have sold but the Desoto stays. Very rare in OZ super rare here. They are both 1956 manufactured but use the 1954 Plymouth sedan as a base that the factory modified. If you take off the inner bed liner you can see where they filled in the rear door openings. The rear roof including window is a stamping from a 1946-48 Plymouth sedan. They have convertible X frames for offroad rigidity and 16" road wheels for clearance.
This one a mate of mine here in Bendigo done a few years back. Chopped roof and pancaked. Slanted B pillars. Suicide doors. Pancaked hood. Fold out tailgate. Aussie Dodge front bumper. Extended front fender into doors. etc. Rocky.
I'm not sure about the body by Hooper or who - what? But I do remember seeing pics of a similar era Dodge or Plymouth? being posted on Ozrodders some years back, -_____ commented on the oddball stuff (Canadian built Fargo's and International's etc) Utes and somebody came forward and posted several pics of a field car that I recall? was a Dodge/Plymouth, and they also very kindly included a nice closeup shot of the "body by _____ " tag/badge. Will look for pics...... But, Weren't Pretty well most Ute/bodies custom/coachwork modified in Oz? You know? ???? ?Many companies were modifying e v e r y b o d i e s "offshore" imported bodies in the 40's ? ?? ??? At the time it made me wonder if any actual oldtime factory 'All in Oz' Utes were made at all? (Ford and Holden excluded) Or if they were all -just Canadian/Brit and the odd/rare US imports- tarted up with custom 'ute' coachwork by Hooper and _________ etc? ? --------------------------------------- maybe I have said too much? (btw, you are right, I saved all the pics form that thread (up to about page 100)) .
I do remember saving pics from a few ebay ads -I'm sure somebody had linked to them in pig (oinks) thread, Wonder where this car went too? and if it's done today? or? -It was cool to watch the '39 progress across the pond, would be neat to see updates on this one too ...Just to put things into perspective, here are the pics -again- in more of a chronically order, The ebay ad/pics first and then a few shots of it on dryer ground, (the original post/pics in the 'old tin' thread have long since disappeared, -they are long gone) -Sorry, no pics of it after it left for America..... 2006ish Oz eBay ad: Harder Ground:
Our ute's had a shorter overhang in the rear than the Ranchero to cope with the steep driveways that were the norm back in the day otherwise it would have been draging its ass on the ground everytime you entered one , horse's for course's I spose !!! The centre line of the rear axle is smack dab in the centre between the rear edge of the door & the tailight ( 6' 7" long !! ) Tray floor is aprox 6" 4" long !!! Love the longer doors on the Ranchero but from there back looks all out of wack JMO !!!
Before i left Australia in 1978 i was a carpenter doing display homes in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. I remember there was a plumber who had one of those Cusso utes with a big rack the full length of the car to carry the long galvanised roof gutters. I satisfied my yearn for a Cusso by getting a '56 Crown Victoria while here in Europe. Now to convert the CV to a ute would be going to far but i know it has been done.
In reference to the body shop that did the Chrysler product UTEs of the 40s it was T.J. Richards that made the bodies or should I say made the modifications to the bodies. The tag shown below is on the 39 Plymouth UTE. and in the picture of it the car behind it is a 3 window coupe that is also an OZ specific body. The roadster Fargo and Dodge UTEs would be the other variants of the Plymouth roadster UTE shown in that post. The variants of truck and car based bodies made in OZ or specifically for the OZ market is pretty hard to track. They also made sloper and panel versions that we never saw stateside. It still amazes me that the American market did not get the UTE body style until the 1957 ranchero. Some people claim it was the Studerbaker coupe express that first introduced the UTE to the American market but it was not a UNI-body so I do not count it and the 54-57 Powell pickup was a rebodied 46-48 Plymouth frame, so again I would disqualify that one also.
As others have posted, I too am enamored of some the early attempts to produce a car/truck shop truck combo. The Aussies produced them from the factory! They may be down under, but they aren't shy about producing sensible(and cool) products. Goodday,Cat
Roadkill, thank for posting the body tag and 39 Plymouth pics, I thought for sure I had those saved/archived to the hard drive but who the heck knows anymore ...... .... thanks again. moe .
Ute bodies can vary from State to Sate depending on the make of the base vehicle. A large selection of British based utes were made by body building companies in the state where that particular model was being sold. The main distributor would contract a body building company and supply drawings or photos of what another state distributors was haveing made for their customers and request the same? or something similar. That is why there are several variations of the same model in certain makes. Or there could be a shortage of available factory made utes from Ford GM or Chrysler, so a dealer would use a body builder or "Coachbuilder" to convert a sedan so as to not loose a sale! Here is one possibly example
The Jalopy Journal
