Page 215 - Wayne Carini's Guide to Affordable Classics

Scout II Traveler wagon and Terra pickups rode on 18-inch longer wheelbases.
soft top with soft doors, windshield-mounted mirrors, plastic door inserts, special plastic grille, and a roll bar, among other options. Several SSIIs were champions on the off-road racing circuit during the late 1970s.
The 1980 model year turned out to be the final year for both the Scout and IH’s line of light-duty trucks. The company tried unsuccessfully to sell off the Scout part of its business and the Fort Wayne plant where the Scouts were built. By then, more than 532,000 Scouts had been sold and the Scout name had been indelibly etched in the history of the SUV.
THE DRIVE
When IH set out to make a vehicle that could replace the horse, they probably weren’t thinking about stretching too far beyond it .... Early Scouts, like the wartime and early postwar Jeeps that preceded them, are very simple, basic vehicles – minimal sound insulation and the kind of ride you could expect from two solid axles suspended by leaf springs. At the start, there were no power-boosted accessories and very few creature comforts. Jalopnik compared it to a Bugeye Sprite, which probably isn’t far off the mark.
Starting with the first Comanche engine, there is definitely not much power to spare, though plenty of torque. With just 93 horsepower on tap (which Motor Trend described in 1966 as “extremely low” in comparison to the 155-horsepower Jeepster), passing requires
careful planning and highway rides can be quite noisy depending on the road surface. With a 38-foot turning radius, U-turns need a wide road – three-point turns are more likely.
The SSII (Super Scout II) was introduced in 1977 and was intended to compete with the Jeep CJ-7. SSII’s had a soft top with soft doors, windshield-mounted mirrors, plastic door inserts, special plastic grille, and a roll bar, among other options. They proved very competitive in off-road racing.
International Scout
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