From The History Archives: Where the Scout II Was Headed

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Jamie@ScoutMotors

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So in digging through the Scout archives, we unearthed a couple of original hand sketches by Larry Nicklin. The drawings themselves are labeled April 1980 and are presumably the direction International was headed with the Scout II facelift after dialing back a full Scout 3 replacement. None of it came to fruition as International Harvester made the decision to end Scout production.

These are in the Navistar Industrial Design Archives, and the label attached reads as follows:

"1984 Scout proposals: After the failure of the LXL and cancellation of International's light-line, an all-new Scout was envisioned. The program was later scaled back to a major facelift. But by the end of 1980, Scout had also been canceled as a product. "

DESIGN 1:

international-scout-4-80-concept1.jpg

international-scout-4-80-concept1rear.jpg


DESIGN 2:

international-scout-4-80-concept2.jpg

international-scout-4-80-concept2rear.jpg

Clearly International was headed in the quad-headlamp direction which was becoming very popular in the 1980s. According to the International Scout Encyclopedia, International Harvester was looking to take the Scout II upmarket to increase profitability. At that point in time SUVs had not started to gain significant traction in the car market and presumably IH saw moving the vehicle to a more premium segment as a means to profitablity. If only they had stuck with it a little while longer, they may have been well ahead of the curve.

Navistar notes on these mention that the full Scout 3 successor was dialed back and the above drawings were proposed facelifts of the Scout II. New model designations were also planned. The Scout II was going to become the Scout 350 with a letter suffix tacked on to designate the trim level: 350S for sport, 350SC for Sport Custom and 350DS for designer series. Not to far off from the Mercedes naming convention at the time.

Anyway, as Chris and I dig this stuff up, we'll try and take photos and post them up for everyone's enjoyment.



International-scout-enclyclopedia.png

If you are interested in Scout history, the International Scout Encyclopedia by Jim Allen and John Glancy is the definiative book. We highly recommend it. You can find it here:

 
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Jamie
Seeing these old renders are great.
Got me thinking it could be a great approach for advertising campaigns. Either go vintage style or modern but get folks like Sketch Monkey and Chip Foos to draw their vision of an off-road scout once the vehicle is more finalized. Would play out the creative and vintage approach
 
So in digging through the Scout archives, we unearthed a couple of original hand sketches by Larry Nicklin. These are labeled April 1980 and are presumably the direction International was headed with the Scout II design:

View attachment 579

View attachment 580

Clearly International was headed in the quad-headlamp direction which was becoming very popular in the 1980s. According to the International Scout Encyclopedia, International Harvester was looking to take the Scout II upmarket to increase profitability. At that point in time SUVs had not started to gain significant traction in the car market and presumably IH saw moving the vehicle to a more premium segment as a means to profitablity. If only they had stuck with it a little while longer, they may have been well ahead of the curve.

New model designations were also planned. The Scout II was going to become the Scout 350 with a letter suffix tacked on to designate the trim level: 350S for sport, 350SC for Sport Custom and 350DS for designer series. Not to far off from the Mercedes naming convention at the time.

Anyway, as Chris and I dig this stuff up, we'll try and take photos and post them up for everyone's enjoyment.



View attachment 581

If you are interested in Scout history, the International Scout Encyclopedia by Jim Hall and John Glancy is the definiative book. We highly recommend it. You can find it here:

Jamie - Correction: It is Jim Allen not Jim Hall.
 
So in digging through the Scout archives, we unearthed a couple of original hand sketches by Larry Nicklin. These are labeled April 1980 and are presumably the direction International was headed with the Scout II design:

View attachment 579

View attachment 580

Clearly International was headed in the quad-headlamp direction which was becoming very popular in the 1980s. According to the International Scout Encyclopedia, International Harvester was looking to take the Scout II upmarket to increase profitability. At that point in time SUVs had not started to gain significant traction in the car market and presumably IH saw moving the vehicle to a more premium segment as a means to profitablity. If only they had stuck with it a little while longer, they may have been well ahead of the curve.

New model designations were also planned. The Scout II was going to become the Scout 350 with a letter suffix tacked on to designate the trim level: 350S for sport, 350SC for Sport Custom and 350DS for designer series. Not to far off from the Mercedes naming convention at the time.

Anyway, as Chris and I dig this stuff up, we'll try and take photos and post them up for everyone's enjoyment.



View attachment 581

If you are interested in Scout history, the International Scout Encyclopedia by Jim Allen and John Glancy is the definiative book. We highly recommend it. You can find it here:

Preciate the images @Jamie@ScoutMotors . I just gotta say, a part of me is happy they discontinued, another part would like to give that a 2-3" lift and 33s. It just looks so... pedestrian.

Of the two I like the second one more, but then I think that's because it looks like a Blazer.
 
Preciate the images @Jamie@ScoutMotors . I just gotta say, a part of me is happy they discontinued, another part would like to give that a 2-3" lift and 33s. It just looks so... pedestrian.

Of the two I like the second one more, but then I think that's because it looks like a Blazer.
Just wait @IdahoJOAT, we have many more sketches and designs that never made it to production... interesting to see where things could have gone, and the progression of design over the decades.
 
Two things i really like from these sketches:

- Look at all that glass surrounding the whole cabin! if it is one thing modern EVs lack is good rear visibility.

- It looks like IH was already planning to slightly "unbox" the scout, i see subtle slope on the front grill and the windshield is fairly sloped.

that being said the original scouts look a lot better.
 
Tim Walz... both a Veteran (retired Master Sargent, like my Dad) and High School teacher (like my Mom) has excellent taste in vehicles. A couple shirt-tail cousins had him as a teacher in Mankato, MN... said he was the most inspiring teachers they'd ever had.

His DD is a traveler, I've seen him drive it in parades & campaign events.

If Scout Motors ever wanted a sympathetic State Governor who'd love to break ground and cut the ribbon at a new Scout factory, it's him.
 
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Got some more backstory on these images. These are in the Navistar Industrial Design Archives, and the label attached reads as follows:

"1984 Scout proposals: After the failure of the LXL and cancellation of International's light-line, an all-new Scout was envisioned. The program was later scaled back to a major facelift. But by the end of 1980, Scout had also been canceled as a product. "

We also found rear drawings, which I've added above.

- jamie
 
So in digging through the Scout archives, we unearthed a couple of original hand sketches by Larry Nicklin. The drawings themselves are labeled April 1980 and are presumably the direction International was headed with the Scout II facelift after dialing back a full Scout 3 replacement. None of it came to fruition as International Harvester made the decision to end Scout production.

These are in the Navistar Industrial Design Archives, and the label attached reads as follows:

"1984 Scout proposals: After the failure of the LXL and cancellation of International's light-line, an all-new Scout was envisioned. The program was later scaled back to a major facelift. But by the end of 1980, Scout had also been canceled as a product. "

DESIGN 1:

View attachment 579

View attachment 623


DESIGN 2:

View attachment 580

View attachment 624

Clearly International was headed in the quad-headlamp direction which was becoming very popular in the 1980s. According to the International Scout Encyclopedia, International Harvester was looking to take the Scout II upmarket to increase profitability. At that point in time SUVs had not started to gain significant traction in the car market and presumably IH saw moving the vehicle to a more premium segment as a means to profitablity. If only they had stuck with it a little while longer, they may have been well ahead of the curve.

Navistar notes on these mention that the full Scout 3 successor was dialed back and the above drawings were proposed facelifts of the Scout II. New model designations were also planned. The Scout II was going to become the Scout 350 with a letter suffix tacked on to designate the trim level: 350S for sport, 350SC for Sport Custom and 350DS for designer series. Not to far off from the Mercedes naming convention at the time.

Anyway, as Chris and I dig this stuff up, we'll try and take photos and post them up for everyone's enjoyment.



View attachment 581

If you are interested in Scout history, the International Scout Encyclopedia by Jim Allen and John Glancy is the definiative book. We highly recommend it. You can find it here:

This is a great post. I love seeing where they might have gone. To me, it's definitely a cross between the top half of a Range Rover P38 (circa 1994) and bottom half of an 80s S10 Blazer. See photos. So, they were clearly trying to go with some trends. I hope the new version is much more 21st century Scout II oriented!!
 

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This is a great post. I love seeing where they might have gone. To me, it's definitely a cross between the top half of a Range Rover P38 (circa 1994) and bottom half of an 80s S10 Blazer. See photos. So, they were clearly trying to go with some trends. I hope the new version is much more 21st century Scout II oriented!!

Agree completely. We have Scout 3 drawing concepts as well, and it goes in a completely different direction. I'll post those drawings in the future.
 
Here's a pair of images I pulled from a generic 'scout 3' search.

I proffer the drawings to the one we (almost) got
 

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