k7oaks wrote: .....Hilux (or equivalent) wasn't a truck,
While I'm at it, since I know the vehicle intimately and have much experience in explaining to people why it is a truck, I'll cover this one also.
Truck
(noun): a motor vehicle for carrying heavy loads. Any wheeled structure for moving heavy goodssuch as a railwayvan or a handcart
(AKA trolly).
The very first Hilux was based off the Stout, which shared it's chassis and drivetrain with the ToyoAce light truck. Stout was built with a conventional two box body on a ladder tyrpe chassis, and ToyoAce, a cab over engine one box body on the same chassis. ToyoAce is still in the line-up alongside the not so heavy duty LiteAce truck, which is a HiAce based forward control Cab Chassis model. All of these trucks are mebers of the Toyota Dyna/Hino Dutro light to meduim duty Truck family.
Hilux was introduced in 1968 replacing the Lite Stout truck with a 1000kg payload capacity. Like every other truck, Hilux can be configured by the owner for any job of work that they require it to do. Some are sold with differing styles of
box (look it up in yer Funk n Wagnels 
) already attached to the chassis behind the cabin. Other versions are sold with only the cabin fitted to the chassis so that owners may install a purpose built tub, box, flatbed tray, or whatever style of body structure will enable them to do the job of work for which they purchsaed the truck. Some are even fitted with a fith wheel hitch, for serious towing duty. Hilux and many other heavier duty trucks are often provided with more than two passenger doors and seats in order to fulfill the need to move workers and their equipment etc, to the workplace, military vehicles and fire appliances being a good case in point. Because of their versatility Hilux based trucks have also become popular for family use. However, one of the most common complaints from families is that they ride hard and are not as comfortable as a passenger car. That's because thay are trucks and if the chassis and suspension were tuned for comfort and sporty handling, then they could not be used as a load carrying truck.
On the other hand, the vehicle we all know and love as a 'Ute' was not purpose built as a truck, but is indeed a Coupe,
(defined by my Australian Dictionary as "An enclosed motor car with only two doors: From the Latin 'Couple' meaning: Two things or people together. That same dictionary also offers two pronuciations for the word being; koopay or koop) that has the rear 'deck' configured like a box, to allow carriage of a light load of goods or produce etc. Hence the name given to the vehicle by it's creator, "Coupe Utility". A Coupe Utility is based on a passnger vehicle and nowadays usually has a payload capacity around half that of a light duty truck or pick-up truck.
I'm thinking one of the interesting things in this post is the dictionary pointing to two different pronuciations of the same word and with the same meaning. This is in fact quite common in the English language as is the use of different words to describe the same thing. For example, all of the vehicles discussed above can be equally and correctly
(accurately is another word with an identical dictinary definition) descibed as, Wagons! Additionally, most of us are old enough that we should clearly understand how language changes with time and evolution of the species. Words that are now in daily use did not exist before we had the internet, others didn't exist until we got smart communications devices like iPads and SMS capable mobile phones. We always had cameras, but never was a photograph of ones self called a Selfie until recent times. Yup, just as we eveolve so too does our language, many of the words have evolved from non English languages like Latin, Greek, French and many others. Despite our English language we use the Arabic numbering system.
And here's something to rub salt into the wounds of folks who bemoan that we now use more Americanisms in our version of the English language than when we were Prisoners Of Mother England. Many English schollars proclaim that the US version of their language is now the purest form, as a result of how it has evolved in other English speaking nations.
Thanks largely to all this knowledge, I remain constantly ammused that we expend so much valuable energy debating what is the correct terminoligy for things when there are so many variations in word applicability and that we all understand those words and what they all mean no matter what context they are used.
The bottom line is this, you may consider me truculent, but that's only because I know the difference between a truck and something that imitates but is not really a truck.
