The 10 Best Utility Coupe Car-Trucks Of All Time

Major auto manufacturers have for decades tried vehicles to meet the varying demands of consumers while innovating to offer new products. The goal has always remained the same: to entice buyers into new types of products. Early on, carmakers found that they could convert their existing automobiles to work service by replacing passenger areas with cargo hauling equipment. The Model T was custom built to suit a wide variety of purposes from open bed trucks to enclosed vans (via Old Cars Weekly). Some were even put into farm service with tractor-like implements powered by the car's 25-horsepower engine.

As the industry matured, new formats and layouts for vehicles emerged, and the car-based truck became a popular addition to new car model lineups. The naming of these vehicles has never been universally standardized. Australians call them utes. Bakkies is the preferred term for South Africans. In the U.S., ute could be interchanged with the truck or, more specifically, El Camino. The North American nomenclature remains ambiguous today. Regardless of the name, these vehicles have remained popular with car enthusiasts, though they have fallen out of favor with buyers in the United States. These are the ten best utes from around the world.

For the American market, the Ranchero was the first of the post-war utes (via Hagerty). It premiered in 1957, showing up as the Ford Ranch Wagon if someone took a chainsaw to the rear cargo area of it. Being a shooting brake, the Ranch Wagon was the perfect basis for the Ranchero, and it immediately proved to be popular. In the mid-'50s, Ford had several offerings for station wagons and wanted to expand its offerings to dominate the space. This was the genesis of the Ranchero. In that era, trucks were commercial vehicles that would be considered too austere for family use yet a wagon could be too constrictive for hauling some cargo, such as furniture. The Ranchero was a perfect alternative for its time.

The Ranchero continued to be that ideal alternative for another seven generations after its introduction. According to Hagerty, the Ranchero was in production from 1957 to 1979, undergoing six changes in body style and offering an array of six and eight-cylinder engines. The sales of the Ranchero never matched those of the El Camino but sold well enough to keep it on the road for decades. The Ford Courier of the seventies and the upcoming Ranger for the eighties led Ford to discontinue the Ranchero in 1979.

The Australian embrace of the car-truck hybrid had long legs starting in the '30s. The first Aussie ute was created by General Motor's down-under division, Holden, in 1933. The story goes that a customer wrote to the company asking for a vehicle appropriate to take to church on Sunday and then haul the pigs to market, and so the utility vehicle was born (via Motor Trend). While this vehicle went through many changes over the years, it was among the final versions that stand out as the king of the utes.

Unlike Americans, Aussies had the opportunity to buy a factory-built ute all the way until 2017 when all Holden production ended. The final utes are based on the Commodore sedan, a version of which was imported to the United States as the Chevy SS, a powerful sports sedan with stunning good looks. The newest utes from Australia are powered by big, beefy V8 engines with loads of torque. The best of them is the Holden Maloo HSV, which became known as the best utility coupe car-truck of all time in its own right. Although Holden is defunct, the brand's special performance division website still exists and details the Maloo. It is powered by a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 with 550 horsepower, upgraded suspension and brakes, and a special appearance package. It is the supercar truck we all want stateside but shall never have.

More than a decade after the end of BRAT sales in North America, Subaru decided it was time for a sequel. However, this time they ditched the rear-facing seats in the bed and avoided those pesky safety-related lawsuits. Sales were brisk and manufacturing had been established in Indiana, according to Car Sales Base, negating any tariffs that could possibly be levied. On paper, the Baja was a fairly good vehicle, but in the showroom, it was a failure and only lasted three years.

Based on the popular Outback station wagon, the Subaru Baja kept most of the vehicle the same except for the cargo area, which was converted into a small bed. To make up for the small cargo area, the rear seats fold down and a pass-through called the Switchback opens up to allow cargo to extend from the bed into the rear of the passenger compartment. A clever innovation to make up for its short cargo space is that when the bed is laid down, the license plate holder is hinged such that it hangs down and remains visible to those traveling behind the car (via Car and Driver).

The Baja was about as quirky as it gets, even from a company known for being quirky. Motor Biscuit looked back on the Baja and found it to be a fun and relatively capable vehicle despite its poor sales numbers, and that values are rising today as collectors looking for unique cars remain drawn to it.

Americans got a late start in adopting car-trucks. Studebaker jumped on the trend starting in 1937 when they converted their Dictator coupe into a truck, via Studebaker Museum. The South Bend, Indiana, company only built 5,700 of these over three years, and failed to gain much ground. As such, the car is tough to find these days.

Built long before monocoque chassis was the norm, the Coupe Express was a fairly simple adaptation of the standard coupe. Cars were built on heavy frames that should have been strong enough for a fairly hefty payload. The only thing that might hold them back is the engine, a 218 cu. in. inline-six making all of 86 horsepower, according to Heacock Classics. Regardless of capability, it is an attractive automobile. The rear fenders blend into the bed in a way that gives the truck a classy look, while the tall, straight lines of the grill sweep back down the length of the hood to produce a distinctive appearance. Being built in 1937, the Studebaker is somewhat austere as a reflection of the Depression but is also decorated with subtle art deco flourishes that make this truck an unmistakable heirloom of its era.

The idea of a car-based utility vehicle seems to be one that has seen its day come and go. The best American utes have long stopped being made and even the Aussies have ended production. Some car enthusiasts love them, but the consumers that actually buy cars for daily use don't feel the same love. However, they haven't completely fallen out of favor everywhere. In Mexico, Stellantis sells the Ram 700 to this day. It is itself a Mexican version of the Fiat Strada, a compact car-based truck, and offered on Ram Mexico's website as a commercial vehicle with either single or couple-cab variants.

Among the automotive press, several stories about this pint-sized pickup lament that this is not headed north of the Rio Grande. Autoweek suggested the market could possibly support it with the likes of the Hyundai Santa Crus and Ford Maverick going on sale, but no plans exist for the Ram to join them. It is built in Brazil for the Latin American market and that is not likely to change. But still, we can dream.