Junkyard Find: 1972 International Harvester Pickup
You know what’s wrong with this country nowadays? You can’t buy a light pickup truck made by a company so agricultural that a piece of farm equipment is in its very name! That all ended in 1980, when the last pickup rolled off the strike-ridden IHC assembly line. The outdoorsy Scout is still a common sight here in Colorado ( on the street as well as in the junkyards), but quite a few of the Scout’s big brothers are still punching the clock as work trucks. Here’s one that made it to the second decade of the 21st century before getting used up.
You can’t see this emblem without thinking of silos and amber waves of grain.
I don’t have the IHC smarts to tell you whether this is a 304, a 345, or a 392. I can tell you that I’m pushing 24 Hours of LeMons teams to drop an IHC engine into a Camaro or Mustang.
Truck interiors have become so busy in the last couple of decades. Here’s what you need on the farm.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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As far as big 3 dealers, there was a time in the 70s when dealers were ordered to build bigger dealerships with LOTS of parking to hold the vehicles shipped that hadn't been ordered. Result- big 3 (+ AMC) moved the friendly neighborhood dealers out into the weeds outside of town. I had seen lots of IH of this series with big barn door hinges holding on the bonnet.
Hate to burst the collective bubble, but the IH pickup trucks were HORRIBLE-- heavy steering, crappy handling, shifters that sucked, and they broke down constantly... when the State Highway Dept retired its last International pickup, everyone at my road yard celebrated.