Junkyard Find: 1971 International Harvester Scout

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Because I live in Colorado, I see quite a few Scouts in wrecking yards— this ’70 and this ’73, for example— and most of the time I don’t photograph them. IHC pickups and SUVs, sure, but the Scouts just blend in like DJ-5 mail Jeeps. This ’71 had a cool custom paint job, plus I’ve realized that all Scouts are interesting, so we’ll check it out.

It’s disappointing that you can no longer buy a new street vehicle made by a farm equipment manufacturer.

Did all Scouts get the Canadian seal of approval?

I’ve never been much interested in off-road machinery, but I must admit I’ve been tempted to buy a Scout (or a Subaru Justy 4WD) since I moved to Colorado.








Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

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.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 37 comments
  • Scoutdude Scoutdude on Feb 12, 2013

    Yes all Scout II and 70's full size trucks carry the transport Canada maple leaf on the certification sticker. What we really need to see is the metal data plate to see if it is one of the ones stamped Scout 810 instead of Scout II or to see if the grille is spot welded or bolted to the valance panel to know if it really is one of the last 1971s or the first 1972s.

    • WildcatMatt WildcatMatt on Mar 11, 2013

      Didn't the VIN system switch for MY 1972? When I was doing some research it looked like if the first position was an "8" it was a 1971 800B and if it was a "1" it was a 1972 Scout II. I know IHC tended to be like Jeep when it came to model year changeovers though so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the first 350 made for '72 were still using the old identification methods.

  • NoGoYo NoGoYo on Jul 12, 2013

    I've always been curious where exactly you BOUGHT an International Harvester vehicle. It's hard to imagine trucks being sold alongside tractors, especially since car and truck dealers are far more ubiquitous than tractor dealers...

  • Varezhka Suzuki Jimny, Toyota Century, and I know it technically just ended production but Honda e.
  • CoastieLenn For those that care to read the details of the crash NOT included in this article but published elsewhere- this happened at nearly 10pm when the CRV was stopped in the center lane of travel, lights off, with the driver remaining in the car. Not only is it not known if Blue Cruise was being used, it would have been a nightmare for most alert human drivers to mitigate that driving the 70+mph speed limit on many sections of I-10 in Texas, much less an AV system.
  • Jeff This is what I would want: Toyota has now released an affordable truck called the Toyota IMV 0. The newly developed vehicle made in Thailand comes with a rear-wheel drive and a gasoline 2.0-liter inline-four matched to a 5-speed manual transmission. NEW $10,000 Toyota Pickup Has Ford & GM Crapping ... YouTube · Tech Machine 8 minutes, 46 seconds Dec 26, 2023
  • Jalop1991 At the same time, let's take these drivers off the road--at least the ones that haven't yet taken themselves off the road.I can guarantee, at no point was this guy or any of the dead Tesla-stans actually driving the car. They were staring at their phones, because, HEY, SELF DRIVING!!
  • 3-On-The-Tree To Maintenance Costs His best friend did the union meetings and he said that there wasn’t a lot of negotiating taking place between the union and state because they were happy with how the state was treating them. He said it seemed more like a formality having the union.
Next