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50th anniversary of SUV precursor celebrated here

Scout lovers from around the U.S. gather to swap stories, parts.

International Harvester Scouts, like these vehicles at Super Scout Specialists Inc. of Springfield, gathered at the Clark County Fairgrounds this month to help celebrate the vehicle's 50th anniversary.

Staff Photo by Barbara J. Perenic International Harvester Scouts, like these vehicles at Super Scout Specialists Inc. of Springfield, gathered at the Clark County Fairgrounds this month to help celebrate the vehicle's 50th anniversary.

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By Tom Stafford and Tom Stafford, Staff Writer
Updated 10:17 AM Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The International Harvester Scout was such a trailblazer, pathfinder and explorer in the highly successful class of sport utility vehicles that even the names of models introduced since sound like faint reminders of the original.

That original was celebrated Sept. 9-11 when the 50th anniversary of the Scout was observed at the 22nd annual Scout and Light Truck Nationals at the Clark County Fairgrounds.

Scout-lovers from around the country gathered to swap parts and stories and reverently of Ted Ornas, the man who sketched out the original Scout at his kitchen  table in Fort Wayne with the instructions “make something to replace the horse.”

Some that weekend may even have shared the dirty truth that the name Scout, though always used for the vehicle, had to be purchased from a Canadian firm holding the rights.

Scout memories

Bruce Shealy, a truck owner -operator from Greer, S.C., fell in love with the Scout when his cousin took him under his wing and out hunting in his youth.

In the early days, when the main competition was Jeep, “they marketed their vehicle to the hunting and fishing crowd,” Shealy said. “The Big Three (Ford, GM and Chrysler) were hard to compete with, they found a niche” and a place in Shealy’s heart.

He bought himself a Scout fixer-upper in 1996, adding larger tires, a roll bar and other accessories to make it a hunting vehicle.

He also has a Scout II Terra pickup truck that won its class a couple of years back.

“This one’s kind of for looking at,” he said.

Bleeding IH red

Many Scout-lovers, though, have Internatinoal Harvester red running through their veins.

Todd Sommer, who has four working Scouts and is restoring a fifth, grew up in the Scouts his dad leased as an International Harvester manager.

Sommer got his 1979 Traveler in 1982 and used various Scouts as his “daily drivers” all the way until 2001.

“Now they’re strictly a hobby vehicle,” he said.

Sommer keeps them off the winter roads near Green Bay, where he practices medicine.

Atlhough Scouts had a power train that lasted for 250,000 miles, he said, their rust-friendly bodies lasted about 50,000.

That’s one reason Mike Ismail, who lives in the “land of no rust,” has been able to collect scads of Scout, Travelall and other International light-line parts at his business IH Only in Lancaster, Calif.

Like Shealy, Ismail had a family connection to IH products: His father built his landscaping business and supported his family out of the back of a 1967 IH pickup truck.

There was a 1959 crew cab used for hunting for a time and the 22nd Scout ever made at Fort Wayne — a vehicle Ismail towed to the Fairgrounds and that in 2007 won the Ted Ornas Award at the 100th anniversary celebration of International Trucks at the Fairgrounds in 2007. The award goes to the Scout closest to original equipment at each show.

Ismail said driving the Scout in front of the late Ornas’ home was one of his real pleasures.

He said it reminded him of when he brought his first prototype home.

The Scout “is my idea of a perfect vehicle,” he said.

Both Ismail and Shealy said that at the 50th anniversary of production, others are starting to think that as well.

“The early Scouts are making a comeback,” Ismail said. “I can’t stop anywhere without drawing a crowd.”

“There’s a whole group of people, a whole generation, that has absolutely no idea what the International Scout is,” agreed Shealy. “I get questions all the time.”

Some questions are from people investing in collectibles.

Maintaining tradition

John Glancy, who grew up the son of a Scout and Light Line dealer, has made the Scout his life.

His Springfield’s Super Scout Specialists and Scout/Light Line Distributing distributes and makes replacement parts — often sheet metal — for Scout owners and parts distributors.

“The guys that do it for us are retired IH plant workers, so they’re experienced,” he said. “It’s all done in-house.”

Glancy said he also has tried to keep the Scout name from being used by others.

“We fought Honda; we fought a Chinese company; we fought a Saudi Arabian company,” he said. “They all wanted to use the Scout name. For the past 20 years or so, we’ve carried the banner.”

Scout purists can do nothing about names that are echoes of the true trailblazer, pathfinder and explorer of the sport utility class.

But, Glancy said, “they don’t want to see the Scout name on anything that’s not a Scout.”

Next week: It wasn’t the 1979-80 strike that killed the Scout.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368.

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