G'day MF,
That's interesting regards being an EL from the firewall on. So essentially, instead of going to the development cost of a completely new ute body, they just exploited their existing old XF ute architecture to make a ute. They must have figured they could keep using that ageing design for a largely commercial market and get more mileage of of the initial tooling investment all that time ago in 1979. They wouldn't have produced the same volume of utes and panel vans as passenger cars so this was a way to catch up.
Times sure changed with the FG when utes were seen as vehicles for leasure as well as commercial use. Their tray back range would have accounted for many sales also.
The change to the 'cab chassis' design occurred with the successor model to the XH, the AU series.
This was a first for FoMoCo Aust; all previous Falcon Utes had been 'stylesides', with monocoque bodywork.
The change to cab chassis also meant the demise of the monocoque Ford panel van.
