The birth of the Coupe Utility / Utility Truck {Also known as Utility, Ute, Pick up, Pick up truck, or just Truck} is an interesting story.
For those of us that have an interest in the automotive world it also draws a bit of a fine line with exact definitions.
Defining a vehicle as a Coupe Utility is where the sides of the "Pick up" and the cabin area are from single pressing, IE; All one piece
The Coupe Utility as we know it today was actually born in Australia.

The birth of the Coupe Utility / Pickup truck began way back in 1932.
The wife of a Victorian farmer wrote a letter to Ford Australia. She explained in her letter that she was fed up with arriving at church on Sunday soaked because the family had to ride to church on the farm truck.
Back in 1932 the banks would lend money to farmers for a farm truck, but they would not lend money for the purchase of a car.
Her request was very basic, "Why don't you build people like us a vehicle to go to church in on Sunday, and which can carry our pigs to market on Monday?"

The letter eventually made its way all the way to the desk of the then Managing Director {Ford Australia} Mr Hubert French. He looked at it, thought about it, and realised that something did need to be done. Possibly without fully realising the massive worldwide appeal that this vehicle would eventually command. So rather than dictate a polite response & dismissing the letter, he handed it to the Sales Manager, a Mr Scott Inglis.

Scott Inglis showed the letter to the then Plant Supervisor Slim Westman. The two started to hatch a plan and then went to see the Ford Australias' Design Department. Way back in 1932 the design department consisted entirely of one man, Lewis Thornet Bandt. He was only 22 years old at the time, but Ford had already singled him out as a man of great talent and would move to bigger & better things within Ford.

Westman gave the opinion to Bandt that if they simply cut down a car & then put a tray on the back, the whole thing would tear in half as soon as there was any weight placed in the rear. Bandt considered this for some time & came up with a plan. He would design it with a frame that came from the rearmost pillar right through to the central most pillars near the doors. He would then install another pillar to give more strength at the weak point where the tray & cabin meet. Bandt was heard to say to Westman "Boss, them pigs are going to have a luxury ride around the city of Geelong!"

Bandt started his design process with a 10 metre blackboard, sketching designs, showing front, side & rear elevations. Some weeks later when the designs were seen by Westman, he gave the instruction to build 2 prototypes. So the first prototypes were born, with a wheelbase of 112 inches and having a cargo bed 5feet and 5 inches long, with a payload capacity of 1200 pounds. They were the very first vehicles of there type with an all weather cabin.

On seeing the prototypes for the very first time Scott Inglis authorised the start-up production run of 500 vehicles. Slim Westman asked Ford HQ {Australia}for 10,000 pounds for the cost of tooling. The very first production Ford Coupe Utilities came off the Geelong, Victoria assembly line in 1934. From an initial letter from a very frustrated farmers wife in Victoria Australia, the Coupe Utility was born. Initially it was viewed as a bit of a luxury, but was quickly accepted and is now viewed as a necessity of life for farmers and tradesmen around the world, and regarded as the perfect vehicle by many people from all walks of life.

Lewis Thornet Bandt remained with Ford Australia until his retirement in 1976. His career included designing long-range fuel tanks for Spitfire and Thunderbolt fighter planes in WW2, design innovations for the UK-sourced Ford Zephyr, the 1967 Australian Ford Fairlane, and the never-approved Falcon convertible, of which six were built outside Ford in 1962.

Eleven years into his retirement, Bandt died on March 18, 1987, in an accident near Geelong between a sand truck and the vintage Ford ute that Bandt had rebuilt for himself. This talented Australian is survived by the legacy of his design, which wins new friends around the world every day.


Source/Bibliography;
Ford Australia Public Relations, and
A History of the Ford Motor Company in Australia, by Geoff Easdown.
Published 1987 by Golden Press Pty Ltd.