How a Ford Falcon ute became a Nissan The Ute

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Once upon a time, in 1980s Australia, Senator John Button came up with a strategy to rationalise our local car manufacturing industry. Dubbed ‘The Button Plan’ (its formal name was Motor Industry Development Plan), the idea was for rival manufacturers to share platforms – and models – across their brands, giving us identical cars, but sporting different manufacturers’ badges. Thus, badge-engineering was born.

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