It was a quintessential Holden moment. Sliding around the last corner of Bathurst's Mount Panorama circuit, one hand out the window and Akubra sponsorship slashed down each side, was a farmer and racer in a V8.
But he was now in a very different type of V8, one better associated with carrying tradesmen's tools or hay bales or vast loads of dirt. The man in question was Allan Grice, a two-time Bathurst 1000 winner, who had turned his hand to racing a V8 version of the Holden Ute – or, as he liked to describe it, a 'two-door sports coupe'.
Ford invented the car-based ute back in 1934, and it has since evolved into an Australian icon. The first Holden ute arrived in 1951. Based on the 48-215 – or FX – it reportedly amassed a waiting list of 70,000 people in its first year. It was front-page news, too, in the same way that a new i-gadget can take a stranglehold on the media.
Holden utes evolved over the decades to include V8 engines, a cab-chassis with more load space, and even a Sandman model aimed at younger buyers. But as Allan Grice raced to a class victory in those early Bathurst 12 Hour races, he was helping contort the former beast of burden into a sports car.
Before long, Holden was running ads where the ute was doing lots of fast things – and the occasional burnout on dirt – and not so much of the load lugging. And as the popularity of the ute grew, it became clear that the vehicle could become the closest thing to a two-seat sports car that Australia had produced.
As the VE Commodore was being developed, Holden designers penned a Coupe Ute. It used the doors, nose and roof of the radical Coupe 60 concept – an idea of what a VE Monaro would look like – but with the tray of a ute. The plan was to amortise the expensive parts of the car – panels and glass – across two models, each with export potential. But the idea was ultimately shelved, despite the wishes of some within the organisation who thought it could have changed the Holden ute forever.
Holden also conceived the Super Ute, which was an expression of what would happen if you applied supercar thinking to the ute platform. The result was: not a jot of space for gear, but plenty of go from electric motors and a bank of batteries. While the Super Ute was engineered to be produced not in Australia but elsewhere in the GM world, it was a hard sell internally. And it was presented in 2009, as GM entered bankruptcy in the US – hardly a peak time to be producing a low-volume supercar. But, as one insider says, 'Americans never understood the ute' – especially turning it into a sports car, which was something that worked in Australia.
That was, in part, one of the reasons the Holden ute was never sold in America. Americans love their big pick-up trucks, such as the Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram, and the sales predicted for the ute were low by American standards, albeit substantial by Holden's production standards. Also, the Australian vehicle would have been slugged with huge import tariffs heading into the US. While the powerful United Automobile Workers Union, which represented hundreds of thousands of American workers, was prepared to accept low-volume imports of the Monaro and Commodore, it would not budge on the utes, which could in some way hit the heartland of the US auto industry.
Former Holden boss Peter Hanenberger argues that the ute was a vehicle Holden should have thrust on the world. "I believe the ute could be one of the biggest export cars Australia could have,": he says, referencing the push to reduce trade barriers between America and Australia. "We fought three years to get zero tariffs, so why don't you fight another year and get basically the ute [sic] as to what America would accept."
Hanenberger also refers to a skunkworks team within Holden tasked with finding ways to develop export markets. "In this task team, they found out that we could have taken this car [ute] to South Africa . . . send it over as CKD [completely knocked down kits to be assembled locally], then bring it into America [with zero tariffs].
"We had that one-time chance."
One thing that took a long time to make it to market, though, was a Holden four-wheel drive ute.
It was the Hilux that was the first of the local utes to offer four-wheel drive. That was in 1979.
"People scoffed at it. They said it looks like a little old Hilux on steroids," remembers former Toyota Australia chief John Conomos of that first off-road Hilux. As with many things Japanese manufacturers did, the Australian makers looked at it briefly and then looked the other way. After all, they were busy building so many large cars.
Arch-rival Ford never produced one (apart from a limited edition run of XYs in 1973), instead delivering the RTV, or Rugged Terrain Vehicle from 2003. With a locking differential and a raised ride height, the RTV was aimed at farmers who wanted more capability from their ute. It sold in modest numbers but was loved by those who bought them.
In 2003, Holden launched the Crewman utility, a four-door version of the Commodore ute that was also offered as a four-wheel drive. It was called Cross6 and Cross8, with the numeral denoting the number of cylinders. It was also short-lived, partly because of its poor rear-seat packaging – the almost vertical seatback and cramped knee room made it less than comfortable for most humans. Hanenberger lists it as one of the few times he wished he'd overruled the designers, for whom he had enormous respect, and insisted on more back-seat space.
By the early 2000s, though, Australians were turning to imported four-door (or 'dual-cab') utes for their off-road fix. Based on truck-like ladder-frame underpinnings and with a more comfortable cabin, they were a hit with tradies, families and blokes trying to flex their muscles.
Conomos thinks Holden and Ford missed an opportunity with the four-wheel drive ute. "It was things like that that opened up market segments that [Ford and Holden] never followed. They stuck with the Holden ute and the Ford ute. They were great city cars, but put them out in the farms, which is where our strengths were, and they just didn't handle it."
These days, the ute has come full circle. People are still buying them for their design and image, but it's their practicality – not their cornering ability – that's making them a winner with families, farmers and tradies.
Extract from Holden: Our Car 1856-2017 written by former Drive Editor Toby Hagon and his father, commentator and industry personality Will Hagon.
Holden: Our Car 1856-2017 is published by Pan MacMillan and available at all good book shops for $59.99.
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