[olivermarks]

I've owned an International Harvester 73 Scout II 4x4 345/torqueflite since 1999.

We've had Ford, the company that managed to kill off the lightline range in 1979 by colluding with their big three partners to crush IH, bringing out their flimsy '60's "Bronco' scout copy which they recently resurrected as a blatant Scout 800 body styling clone.

My point - why are the big auto makers so terrible at innovation and naming conventions? Why do we have to endure these irritating stories about execs 'resurrecting' past era vehicles and trying to get some of the mystique to rub off on their lame new models?

I also own a 1967 IH Travelall 4 x4. IH were absolutely awesome at building vehicles that were very beefy and mechanically built to last but horrifically rust prone. They helped kill themselves by ludicrously over optioning their lightline vehicles with what seemed like 100's of trim options, variants and levels that were very hard to organize on the assembly line. The golden era of US automobile manufacturing being culturally strip mined by VW.

1968 International Scout TV Commercial featuring a beagle puppy cute https://youtu.be/nKj3sjmRm5U

[dieselgate]

Whoah you mentioned some interesting background into the history of IH. Seeing VW pair with IH was also very surprising to see in the article - especially in regards to EVs (as IH has predominately been a diesel manufacturer in my lifetime). Why did Ford want to “crush” IH if they put their Diesel engines into Ford trucks for like 3 decades? There was a HN post recently about the stagnation of music and movie/video/film production and it seems to maybe tie into this phenomena. I’m also laughing a bit because my daily driver is an 02 new beetle tdi (alongside an 88 f250 with the IH engine). I remember being pretty critical of the new beetles when they first came out but they’re just cheap now and have good reliable engines..

[olivermarks]

The IH lightline range were pretty well all gasoline powered consumer level vehicles with an agricultural/offroad pedigree. The 345 v8 in a scout is the same engine as IH put in the big yellow school buses, tons of low end torque, if it wasn't for gravity they could climb just about anything. Very easy to work on with a few foibles. The IH full size truck division became Navistar and are a very different breed.

Those early beetles are basically a scirroco floorpan, watch out for the plastic waterpump blade...we had one where that failed with little noise or evidence until steam. Great cars though!

[dugmartin]

The first vehicle I ever drove was a Travelall back in the late 70s when I was 8 or 9. My great uncle had one on the family farm and it was a beast. Driving that thing up a hill by myself (with my uncle in the passenger seat) on gravel farm road was both scary and exciting.

I understand that the big automakers make a lot of money on the fancy trim packages but I would love a stripped down truck and even more a stripped down light truck. I still miss my '87 Nissan Frontier I had in grad school.