AUSSIE CRAWL

THESE LOCALLY BUILT BEAUTIES ARE BECOMING VERY RARE BUT ARE A SIGN OF WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

- SCOTT NEWMAN; STEVE NALLY

BELIEVE it or not, there was a time when there was no such thing as an SUV. In the early 1970s, if you wanted a 4WD vehicle to go off the beaten track or haul a load of tools or hay, the only options were 4-wheel drives like the Toyota LandCruiser, Nissan Patrol, Land Rover or Jeep Cherokee.

When Ford responded to a tender from the Australian Army for a 4x4 with more power than its four-cylinder Land Rovers, a new type of vehicle was born – the XY Falcon 4x4 Utility. The army never did take delivery of the 4x4 Ford ute due to concerns about its strength under battlefield conditions, but public interest in the project was enough for Ford (which already had a connection with Jeep importer Willys Motors) to build 432 beefed-up XY utes with Jeep drivetrains slung underneath.

Unfortunately, delays in receiving Dana front axles stalled production for so long, the new XA Falcon was already released by the time XY 4x4s started rolling off Ford’s Eaglefarm (Qld) production line. In fact, some XA parts, like its bench seat, ended up in the XYs.

Despite not going on sale – with an outdated body – until early 1973, Ford sold the lot and they remain highly collectable. It would be the last locally built Ford 4x4 until the Territory SUV was launched in 2004, as Broadmeadows’ bean counters decided it would be too expensive to engineer subsequent models for four-wheel drive.

One bloke who showed keen interest in the XY was Tasmanian engineer, Arthur Hayward. Legend has it that when one of the newfangled Fords 4x4 utes arrived in Tasmania, Hayward turned up at the house of a Falcon ute owner and spent time crawling around it making detailed sketches of its 4x4 system. Hayward had a plan and the XY 4x4 provided a convenient template.