Louis (Lewis) Bandt (1910 – 1987) vehicle manufacturer
Louis (Lewis) Bandt was a motor vehicle engineer who designed and built the world’s first ‘coupe utility’ aka the ‘ute’. Bandt was a charity worker and, from childhood, a committed member of the Methodist (later Uniting) Church. He was an accomplished artist who painted Ford’s nativity scene at Christmas.
Louis Bandt, motor vehicle designer and engineer, was born on 26 February 1910 at Moonta, South Australia, eldest of five children of Louis Seymour Bandt, butcher, and his wife Ethel, née Hobbs, both born in South Australia. After World War I the family moved to Adelaide. Encouraged by his father, in 1924 Louis junior began a fitting and turning apprenticeship with Duncan & Fraser Ltd.
This firm specialised in the modification and sale of T-model Fords, and Bandt spent most of his time designing custom-made bodies.
In 1927 he moved to Victoria to work for the Melbourne Motor Body & Assembling Co. Pty Ltd. Two years later he was appointed a junior draughtsman at the Geelong plant of the Ford Motor Co. of Australia Pty Ltd. He became the first designer on the staff of Ford’s Australian subsidiary. A job at the factory was arranged for his father, and the rest of the family moved from Adelaide.
Although he was to enjoy a 46-year career with Ford, Bandt’s chief distinction, the design of the `coupe utility’, came early. In 1932 a Gippsland farmer’s wife wrote to the company pointing out the need for a combined work and passenger vehicle, purpose-built for farmers who were having to make do with `buckboards’: open-sided, soft-canopy T-model cars converted by adding a rear timber tray to carry loads. Bandt’s innovation provided for an enclosed, protective and comfortable cabin at the front and a tray at the back, 5 ft 5 ins (165 cm) long and able to carry 1200 lb. (544 kg).
A sample body was made in 1933 and the first utilities, or `utes’, rolled off the production line next year. Dubbed `the Kangaroo Chaser’ by Henry Ford when Bandt displayed two examples in Detroit, United States of America, in 1935, the ute was quickly recognised as the ideal farmers’ vehicle.
Both the Ford and General Motors companies were soon manufacturing models for the American market. In World War II Bandt worked on the production of auxiliary fuel tanks for fighter aircraft. He won bronze medals in the annual British Empire motorcar design competitions in 1947-48. Among the most popular of Bandt’s later designs were a station wagon conversion of the Mark II Zephyr in the 1950s and a right-hand drive version of the 1967 Fairlane.
In the mid-1960s he spent some time at Ford’s Canadian plant. Back at Geelong, he was manager of body engineering. He had several terms as chairman of the Geelong and South-West Victoria group of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Australasia.
On 6 September 1941 at Prospect North Methodist Church, Adelaide, Bandt had married Nellie Alice Rowe, a music teacher. A charity worker and, from childhood, a committed member of the Methodist (later Uniting) Church. He was an accomplished artist who each year painted Ford’s nativity scene at the Geelong factory, located on the Princess Highway.
He retired in 1975. On 18 March 1987 he took part in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation television documentary about the utility. While driving his restored 1934 model home that day, he collided with a truck on the Midland Highway, near Bannockburn, and was killed. His wife and their three daughters survived him.
Source : http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A170054b.htm
A Brief History of the Ute
I was pleased to hear that Holden is going to be exporting its Ute to America as the newest member of the Pontiac lineup. Here in Australia, we have enjoyed the benefits that Utes provide for a long time: put simply, they are powerful workhorses that still give you the creature comforts of a car. What many of you may not know is that the Ute in its current form, where the pick-up bed and side panels are produced as one piece to provide a seamless body moulded tray, was in fact invented here in my Australian hometown, Geelong.
In what must rate as one of the best customer-service responses of all time, Ford Australia designed and built the first Utility Coupe based on the request from a farmer’s wife in 1933. The long-suffering woman wrote a letter to Ford asking why they could not produce a vehicle that could both take them to church in comfort on Sundays and take their pigs to the market on Mondays. The request was passed on to a young designer by the name of Lewis Bandt, who designed what would turn out to be a real winner in the Australian car market for generations.
GM and other manufacturers quickly followed suit, though the first actual Holden Ute, predecessor of the ones that’ll soon be rolling out of Pontiac showrooms in the US, didn’t appear until after WWII. Bandt’s original design for Ford produced a vehicle that had a wheel base of 112 inches, with a rear tray that was 5ft 5 inches long and had a load capacity of 1200 pounds.
Sadly, Bandt died in a collision with a commercial truck in 1987, while driving a vintage Ford Ute that he had restored.
Source : http://blog.cardomain.com/2008/03/19/a-brief-history
The history of the Aussie ute : http://www.oocities.com/motorcity/pit/9026/history.html
also
http://www.fastlane.com.au/Features/First_ute.htm
and
http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/the-creation-of-an-aussie-icon-20100527-wg5e.html
and
http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_future/Transcripts/s779287.htm
How the utility vehicle, once dismissed by Henry Ford as a ‘kangaroo chaser’, became an Australian classic
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/great-australian-ute-story-of-utility-vehicle-s-birth/100855458
More information on ‘Pickup trucks’ and ‘Utes’ at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickup_truck
and at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup%C3%A9_utility
and at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_(vehicle)
with the earlier version of a ‘car-converted-to-a-ute’ at : http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melbourne_details.php?id=11491
and
http://www.naa.gov.au/whats-on/online/showcases/memory/convert-it-into-a-ute.aspx
Lewis Bandt image sourced from:
http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_future/Transcripts/s779287.htm
More information on Ford Australia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Australia
Lewis Bandt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Bandt
The Lewis Bandt Bridge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Bandt_Bridge
Greens MP Adam Bandt is Lewis Bandt’s great-nephew:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/make-mine-electric-greens-car-plan-for-melbourne-20100703-zv2t.html
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