Oz Life (XI): Utes (OJG)
Utes as they are called here in Australia, Buckies in South Africa, and Pick-ups in the US. It's short for Utility, or more specifically Utility Vehicle.
The vehicle type basically does not exist in the UK, but over here, it owns the largest slice of the car market cake, and is pretty much dominated by Ford and Holden (The Australian arm of Vauxhall)
As far as I am concerned all Utes can be categorised as follows;
Age: Classic, 80s, or Modern.
Looks: Practical, Pimped, or Frankenstein.
As you'd expect in the middle of a city nearly all Utes are Pimped Modern. whereas in the outback you get a lot more 80s Practical and 80s Frankenstein.
Before some of our Australian readers get too angry with me, I feel it important to mention that I have seen truly nice examples of every possible combination. At the same time some have not been so truly nice.
Age speaks for itself and cannot be modified, but looks on the other hand are unique to each vehicle and can be modified until the roos come home!
Practical: Aluminium Flat Bed, Gloss paint job (usually with little knocks), lights along the front and on top of the cab, various tool boxes at the front of the bed, High suspension.... again fairly common ingredients. These Utes are pure utility, and are used by individuals as much as large companies to get jobs done!
Pimped: Aluminium V-8, Tinted windows, Pearl paint job (absolutely perfect), lights along the side and underneath, Speakers and amps completely filling the rear bed, lowered suspension... all of these things are fairly common. Of course, these Utes have no utility left in them whatsoever but I don't think that is the point!
Frankenstein: Well, I'm not sure of the basic ingredients for one of these, except that it just looks a mess! It can have any combination from the previous two types, and then some. Usually these abominations do not even look road worthy let alone able to carry things, and yet they zoom along the roads with their payloads just as well as everything else. I do wonder if they need a lightning bolt to get started? (Some sound like it!)
I will post more pics as I get them, but for now this will have to do as a taster.
The vehicle type basically does not exist in the UK, but over here, it owns the largest slice of the car market cake, and is pretty much dominated by Ford and Holden (The Australian arm of Vauxhall)
As far as I am concerned all Utes can be categorised as follows;
Age: Classic, 80s, or Modern.
Looks: Practical, Pimped, or Frankenstein.
As you'd expect in the middle of a city nearly all Utes are Pimped Modern. whereas in the outback you get a lot more 80s Practical and 80s Frankenstein.
Before some of our Australian readers get too angry with me, I feel it important to mention that I have seen truly nice examples of every possible combination. At the same time some have not been so truly nice.
Age speaks for itself and cannot be modified, but looks on the other hand are unique to each vehicle and can be modified until the roos come home!
Practical: Aluminium Flat Bed, Gloss paint job (usually with little knocks), lights along the front and on top of the cab, various tool boxes at the front of the bed, High suspension.... again fairly common ingredients. These Utes are pure utility, and are used by individuals as much as large companies to get jobs done!
Pimped: Aluminium V-8, Tinted windows, Pearl paint job (absolutely perfect), lights along the side and underneath, Speakers and amps completely filling the rear bed, lowered suspension... all of these things are fairly common. Of course, these Utes have no utility left in them whatsoever but I don't think that is the point!
Frankenstein: Well, I'm not sure of the basic ingredients for one of these, except that it just looks a mess! It can have any combination from the previous two types, and then some. Usually these abominations do not even look road worthy let alone able to carry things, and yet they zoom along the roads with their payloads just as well as everything else. I do wonder if they need a lightning bolt to get started? (Some sound like it!)
I will post more pics as I get them, but for now this will have to do as a taster.
3 comments:
what a sheltered life you've led Ol! in england they're called pick-ups. we have at least two neighbours who have them. some of them are pure utility vehicles and some of them are very up market, quite trendy in fact.
Cor, Ol, pretty fancy pick-ups you've snapped there. As you know, it's probably the most common vehicle here, and most of them belong under the heading "Abomination"! They're usually fairly new, but after about a year, what with an unavoidable combination of humidity, salt in the air, jungle journeys and the phenomenon that's known as 'Thai Driving', they all end up as abominations, rusted, dented, and spewing thick black smoke out of their rear ends. Even our local taxi, the 'song-taow', is a modified pick-up, 2 incredibly uncomfortable benches along the back and a scalp-scrapingly low roof on top. t is possible to squeeze about 35 Thai people into it, or 4 fat farangs. The many Merc owners keep a pick-up for their staff, and construction folk can transport about 40 Burmese labourers (standing room only) in one. Which looks weird, since the labourers all wear balaclavas, so you tend to think it's a unit of terrorists whizzing by, certainly in these times of mass paranoia.
The other bonus with pick-ups is that they are not subject to the normal 200% vehicle tax, making them fairly affordable to the non-Merc masses.
The final word on pick-ups:
I was passing Toyata the other day with a prospective land-buyer, and he said " What do you call 20 new pick-ups parked end-to-end?"
Answer? "A good pick-up line".
Whuh! Whuh!
...you have no idea... :-/
Oh, by the way, Dalia's a dad! Hannah, born last Monday. :-D
ToyOta, sorry!
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