Backward Glances

The 1970s were not kind to International Harvester. In 1975, after nearly 70 years of building light trucks, production of the vaunted International Light Line ended. That included trucks from ½- to 1-ton and the Travelall SUV, but not the Scout. Sales of the 100-inch-wheelbase International Scout was doing pretty well overall so it survived the cut. It had become increasingly expensive for International to compete in the growing light truck market and with the agricultural side of the massive IH organization also in financial distress, one of the triage moves was to kill the light truck lines.

The Scout product planners had