Here in the states, the El Camino and Ranchero battled for decades as car-based pickups. Australia is much like the US, only upside down, and today's Falcon XF Ute might have required a bed cap to keep everything from falling up when down there. Now that it's here, that's not a problem, but is its price?

Many a huckster has touted the unbelievable powers of a carnuba wax or nose bra that offers amazing radar-absorbing properties, claimed to make your car invisible to John Law's speed guns. None of those work of course, however yesterday's went a long way towards camouflaging itself in the visible spectrum, having been coated entirely to look like the macadam beneath it. You're all far too eagle eyed to fall for that, and sadly for the car's asphaltistic seller, it rocked a 69% Crack Pipe loss.

The volcanic islands of Hawaii have been pushing forth from the sea for centuries, the lava flows…

Do you remember Monday's ? Well, that seller, as you may have noted from that car's contest also had a another brother from down under in his stable, and it as well was part of the herd to be culled. The Falcon XF was the best selling of the marque, with Ford moving nearly 300,000 of them in total. One of those, a Falcon Utility - think Ranchero, mate - has managed to make its way to Los Angeles.

Frustratingly, Australia has some wildly great cars that never make it to the US. Today's Nice…

Fred Gwinn, playing the pedantic southern judge in My Cousin Vinny, famously queried Joe Pesci's neophyte New York lawyer, what is a ute? Well, it doesn't take the ridiculously hot Marisa Tomei to explain that it is in fact not a 1964 Buick Skylark convertible, nor a '63 Tempest, but a car-based pickup of the Australian persuasion. This is of unknown age, however these were built between '84 and '93. They also, unlike their romper-stomper seventies progenitors, lacked a factory V8, eschewing that for a modest selection of sixes.

The seller lays claim that this visitor from a land down under has lost its six, and in fact rocks the same 351C as his XB coupe, and despite its tender years, has managed to license it in that most unfriendly of places to pollution-spewing furrin' cars - California. Aside from the Cleveland, he offers no clue as to the rest of the mechanicals or mileage. It could be an automatic, it could be a stick. A/C? Who knows.

It does have a right nice piece of artwork on its rump, sort of a tramp stamp for the tailgate set. Aside from that anomaly, it's pretty much beige all around, and aside from the pick-em-up bed, looks like a domestic Fairmont. The inside, like the earlier car, dresses to the right, but other than that should make anyone familiar with ‘80s Ford interiors feel right at home.

At $25,000 the XB Coupe proved to be less than fair dinkum, however at $6,000, this Ute may prove to be as tasty as a Vegemite sandwich. What do you think, does that price make your down under tingle? Or, does that make this a Ute you refute?

You decide!

or go if the ad disappears. H/T to Slowlane for the hookup, mate!

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