Do we need to pander to the 'southern hick' croud?

[TheKman]

I travel outbound on the Westgate Freeway on the way home from work and every evening I laugh when I see the Holden Colorado billboard. If you haven't seen one it has a catch phrase "The best of both worlds" and pictures two utes, one on each side, being loaded or unloaded from the rear.

I'll be honest and say that I've never actually looked at it long enough to see what the actors pictures are actually doing, focused on driving and all that. However, in my imagination I see, on the left, a fella' in fatigues/camo loading an animal carcass into the tray, and on the right, a fella' in blue stubby's and a white singlet unloading slabs of VB. This is already enough to illicit a small chuckle.

Then I imagine a scene from The Blues Brothers where they pose as The Good Ol' Boys and ask the bartender what kind of music they normal have here, she replies "Oh we got both kinds, Country and Western." Well, maybe I should actually look at the billboard, it would probably be less distracting than the laughter.

Do we have a large enough gun-toting VB-chuggin' ute-drivin' population to warrant a marketing campaign? I've shot a few rounds and drank a few VB's, but I still think it's a stretch to make a parallel with the truck-drivin' southern hick croud.

[/end brain dump]

 

[elgrumpo]

I'll just smile for a bit and send you a reply later, too much to do this morning.

 

[newo]

I'm guessing a lot of the target audience would be builders/contractors that want a bit of comfort but still be able to chuck the dirty gear in the back.

But in reality I can't see the cross over to recreational use as no one takes their equipment out of a weekend to head up into the hills for a bit of R&R.

 

[TheKman]

I can't believe I mis-spelled crowd.

I'm from the south... Maybe I should change my name to TheHickMan.

But in reality I can't see the cross over to recreational use as no one takes their equipment out of a weekend to head up into the hills for a bit of R&R.

My point exactly, we just don't have the mass adoption of trucks like the U.S. does. We call them utes for good reason.

 

[drwevil]

I just smile and buy a Ford Ranger ....


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[John Rose]

But in reality I can't see the cross over to recreational use as no one takes their equipment out of a weekend to head up into the hills for a bit of R&R.

Yeah.
I can't imagine that people who buy the Alfa Romeo Stelvio "SUV"...

... are going to take it anywhere near a dirt road, let alone out for a bit of muddin'.

 

[cleanshaved]

With Holden pulling out of manufacturing in Aussie in October, they will have to work very had to get people to buy their rebadged foreign cars.
Sounds like they are try hards.....er I mean trying hard.

I say it is a lost cause. The 2018 Holden commodore is basically a Opel........like that has work well before.

So with both Ford and Holden pulling up stumps I say lets build more Foldens.
Half Ford, half Holden. Guaranteed to cause a stir a Bathurst.

 

[newo]

I just smile and buy a Ford Ranger

I've had a few Rangers now. Get them at work with steel trays. First was good but the BT was better. This latest model ranger I've got is a right ***, no end of little annoying issues. Biggest pain is the key in ignition alarm... Yep I know they are in the ignition I put the damn things in there! Mine was the first of the new models and you can't turn off the alarm without disconnecting it from inside the steering column (not my ute so not going to play around with that) and the bloody thing does not time out, it just chimes on and freaking on

other issues are crappy batteries (multiple guys at work have had batteries fail) and for me constant turbo under power faults which send it into limp-home mode

Buy a ranger? Not me, I'll take a BT50 any day

 

[drwevil]

I've had a few Rangers now. Get them at work with steel trays. First was good but the BT was better. This latest model ranger I've got is a right ***, no end of little annoying issues. Biggest pain is the key in ignition alarm... Yep I know they are in the ignition I put the damn things in there! Mine was the first of the new models and you can't turn off the alarm without disconnecting it from inside the steering column (not my ute so not going to play around with that) and the bloody thing does not time out, it just chimes on and freaking on

other issues are crappy batteries (multiple guys at work have had batteries fail) and for me constant turbo under power faults which send it into limp-home mode

Buy a ranger? Not me, I'll take a BT50 any day

I'll stick with my Falcon EcoLPI then....


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[elgrumpo]

I did smile when I saw this post yesterday. The market for specced out large twin-cab utes, or Great Big FO 4wd's as my wife calls them, is huge in Australia and it's not just for tradies. Nearly a third of the guys that i used to work with drove them or Jeeps, don't get me started on that one.

A couple of points to correct. Holden has been re-badging Isuzu utes for more than 2 decades, in the past they called them Rodeos and now they're called Colorados. Mechnically the Ranger and BT-50 are the same vehicle.

 

[TheKman]

I must keep a different crowd, I know only one big FO 4WD owner, as you say, and it's soul purpose is to tow a 2.5T caravan. My wife's Forester doesn't count, it's just a slightly larger Impreza with a sunroof.

 

[newo]

Mechnically the Ranger and BT-50 are the same vehicle.

Nominally yes but whatever they have tweaked to increase power etc needs a year or two to fix the issues. The BT50 hasn't changed from the old model yet.

 

[newo]

And where I work has a considerable fleet that churns them at 80k

 

[elgrumpo]

And where I work has a considerable fleet that churns them at 80k

Stand corrected on the tweaking.