Pickup truck

A pickup truck or ute is a light motor vehicle with an open-top rear cargo area.

In North America, the word pickup generally refers to a small or medium sized truck. This light commercial vehicle features:

• a separate cabin
• and rear load area or compartment (separate cargo bed).

Instead of a well-type bed (short rigid sides) with an opening rear gate, some pickups have a flat tray back (aka flatbed). Others may have a specialty body mounted behind the cabin.

Two North American vehicles, the Chevrolet El Camino and Ford Ranchero are not technically trucks. This is because the have a spot welded sheet steel monocoque chassis in the same style as modern passenger cars. Trucks on the other hand usually have a heavy 'C' section rail chassis with a fully floating cab and separate cargo section. The sheet steel in both of these sections is not a stressed member. A combination of the two styles, monocoque cab and engine bay welded to a 'c' section chassis rear is offered in Australia. It is known as the 'one tonner' because it is rated to carry some 250kg more than the all monocoque style.

Vehicles like the El-Camino and Ranchero are known in Australia and New Zealand as a ute or utility (from "Coupe utility"), in South Africa as a bakkie (pronounced "bucky"), in Egypt as "half truck", and in Israel as a tender. Panel vans, a kind of van, popular in Australia during the 1970s, were based on a ute chassis, known in Egypt as "box" and mainly used by police.

The design details of such vehicles vary significantly, and different nationalities seem to specialise in different styles and sizes of vehicles. For instance, North American pickups come in full-size (large, heavy vehicles often with V8 or six-cylinder engines), mid-size, and compact.

History

The first factory-assembled pickup debuted in 1925 and sold for $281. Henry Ford billed it as the "Ford Model T Runabout with Pickup Body." The 34,000 built that first year featured a cargo box, adjustable tailgate, four stake pockets and heavy-duty rear springs.

In 1928, the Model A replaced Model T - becoming the first closed-cab pickup and sporting innovations like a safety glass windshield, roll-up side windows and three-speed transmission. It was powered by a four-cylinder, L-head engine capable of 40 horsepower.

1931 was the first year for a factory-built Chevrolet pickup, known as the "Independence Series".

In 1932, the 65-horsepower Ford flathead V8 engine was offered as an option in the truck. By 1936, Ford had already produced 3 million trucks and led the industry in sales.

For 1933, a vehicle debuted in Australia known as the utility or "ute".

During the great depression, money was very tight. Farmers could not afford both a car for their families and a truck for their farms. Banks would not lend money to farmers to buy a luxury like a car, but would lend money to a working vehicle like a truck. So a farmer (or his wife) wrote a letter to the managing director of the ford car company stating:

Why don't you build people like me a vehicle in which I can take my family to church on Sunday, and my pigs to town on Monday?

The Body designer at Ford Australia, Lewis Bandt designed the first ute. He married the front of the car with the back of a truck. It was called a coupe utility- coupe, because it was designed to carry two people, and utility because the farmer could use the back section to carry stock or other things.

This Australian-made utility was the first to offer a fully-sealed passenger compartment, made of metal. It was based on the front of the new Ford V-8 sedan. It had metal doors, a metal roof and windows made of glass.The cargo section, the side panels and the rear of the cab were all pressed from a single piece of metal.The cargo section was totally separate, and could be covered with a special piece of canvas, if required. The suspension had been specially designed to suit the car.

By October 1933, Ford Australia had built two prototypes of the utility. They were immediately sent to farms; the banks would lend farmers the money to buy them, because they could be considered a work vehicle. The cargo section could carry a load of half a tonne.

In 1935, Bandt took two of his coupe utilities to America and showed them to Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, who called them "kangaroo chasers". In most of America it was called a "pick-up truck"- because it was like a small truck, and they could pick up loads with it. The Texans called them "rancheros" because they used them on their ranches. The utility was a worldwide success.

By : http://en.wikipedia.org