dirt settlers

It was a ‘farmer's wife’ (a female) who came up with the ‘idea’ of a Ute…it was her ‘thought’.

Quote

“The 'Ute' - A vehicle with the cabin of a car and the rear of a small truck was designed by Lewis Brandt at the Ford Motor Company in Geelong, Victoria, 1934 and called a 'Utility Vehicle'. The 'Ute' has long been a favourite vehicle for farmers and tradesmen and is part of the Australian landscape.

In 1933 a Gippsland farmer's wife wrote a letter to Ford and she said "Can you build me a vehicle that we can go to church in on Sunday without getting wet, and my husband can use it to take the pigs to market on Monday?" So the idea of combining a car and a truck together was something that Lew Bandt, who then was the young designer of Geelong, came up with. He took the 1933 model coupe and built the back on it and strengthened the chassis so that it would carry the load, and it was approved and they went into production in 1934. From the front, it's just a very nice Ford coupe passenger car. At the back, of course, is the workhorse part of it, but inside this is exactly what the farmer's wife from Gippsland wanted. She wanted wind-up windows, she wanted comfortable seats, she wanted a roof that didn't let the rain in, and Lew Bandt provided just the car for her. The influence that Lew Bandt had on the Australian motor industry was tremendous, but he also had an influence right around the world because virtually every other manufacturer, certainly of popular cars, built a coupe utility and all of them were derived from the idea that Lew Bandt had in 1933.”

Unquote

It wasn’t Lew Bandt’s idea, it was the ‘idea’ of the farmer’s wife. He should have given credit to her. She should have registered her concept.

Fair suck of the sav, Lew.

http://www.fastlane.com.au/Features/First_ute.htm

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