Well, thanks to everyone who contributed, & a special big thanks to those woth informed opinions.
To briefly respond to a couple of comments directly addressed to me.

TeamDat
The well-body Holden & the one tonner version of the same model are both grouped under the general heading of "commercial vehicle" in the same way that the four door Sedan & the Monaro two door are both "passenger cars"
The ute is a ute, & the one tonner is a cab chassis, or tray back, or any number of things, depending on what is bolted to the rear of the chassis. The current Falcon [the one that bears some similarity to a ute] is a pickup, regardless of what the factory calls it.
The landcruiser pickup is not a ute for the same reason. IE It does not have a one piece body from the rearmost door opening to the tailgate. It really is that simple.

Blair. Draw? I don't think so. By definition, thats an impossibility. A ute is either a ute in it's own right, or it isn't. We can't both be right.

Dazzasute. Thanks for coming up with the info. I am quite surprised at the final statement though. It would seem that the author has gone to a lot of trouble to come up with the correct description of an Aussie ute, then to basicly go & say, "but if you want to call any similar [but not identical] cargo vehicle a ute, then go for it" That strikes me as being a cop out, but i don't have a copy of the book, so i will now try to find one.

By now, everyone who has been following along knows what a ute ACTUALLY is, even if they can't bring themselves to admit it, & prefer to apply a double standard by correctly naming passenger models, but not their commercial brethren.
The part that has me stumped is that, once these people are in posession of the facts, they chose to ignore them & go blythely on their way. Thats what i call "aquired ignorance"


My_lil_beast. I thank you for your contribution, but when i read the last bit of your post, i thought,... you know this subject is not what you want to read about, so why read it?
Yeah, i know, same as me, can't help yourself.

For me, my comments in "this" thread, end here.

Quote:

this kind of took me by surprise aswell. I think his point was, and if you follow it through, with this final comment in mind, it does make sense. What he is saying is that over the years the definition has become more and more blurred (you could say, i suppose "evolved"as some one put it). In typical aussie style, we don't worry too much about the definition, and we just call anything with a tray or load area of some description a ute.