![\"Coupe](\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Coupe-utility.jpg\")
<\/a>The “coupe utility” was born right here in Australia; the well worn story has it that Ford designer Lew Bandt developed the vehicle in response to a request to Ford Oz HQ, asking for a vehicle that could take the wife to church on Sunday and the pigs to market on a Monday. This was in 1934, well before any American based designs and ahead of Holden, which released its own ute in 1951, on the 48-215 chassis. The ute has been a staple part of the Aussie carscape ever since, in two and four form and in two or four wheel drive configuration. Both Ford and Holden tried the high rise look, to limited but cultish success, ![\"1950-48-215](\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/1950-48-215-Holden-ute-001.jpg\")
<\/a>but it’s been a slow decline for the ute.<\/p>\nAs one in five new vehicles sold in Australia are sourced from Thailand, with under one in ten vehicles delivered sourced from an Australian manufacturer, the numbers simply no longer stack up for Holden and Ford (Toyota and Mitsubishi never built a ute but Chrysler did) and with the mooted change to a front wheel drive large car for both, there’s no plans for a ute. As it stands, the Holden Commodore ute is down by a frightening 31 percent in year to date figures whilst the VF sedan and wagon are up by 15 percent with the irony being the ute is effectively based on the wagon design….Since the beginning of the year there’s been over 100, 000 Thailand sourced 4WD utes compared to 4100 Holden and 3500 Ford utes.<\/p>\n
News released on the 27th October comes as a bitter blow for those that like their two door cars with a huge boot; Holden has decided, along with Ford, that the humble yet much loved ute will cease to be from 2016. To blame are a number of factors but chief amongst them appears to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buy-new-car"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3164"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12096,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164\/revisions\/12096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>The situation Australia faces can be said to be dire when it comes to local manufacturing; <\/a>the Button car plan is seen as the root cause now for the decline of our car industry and with manufacturers outside of Australia utilising a zero percent tariff costbase in Thailand, there’s been no real protection for Ford and Holden. Come 2016 it will be a sad goodbye to our two door car with a huge boot, the ute. http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/kreditnye-karty.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"