Once upon a time, I had one of these. Back in the last half of the 70s, International Harvester put out the Scout as an all purpose vehicle, but the public was not in the mood to purchase, and I believe it was only manufactured in 77, 78, and 79.
Now, all the above is not really important for this post. It began this morning as I noticed a text from Dwayne, telling me that IH had sold the rights to Volkswagen to use the Scout name and produce a EV, to be manufactured by 2028 in South Carolina.
Then he closed his note with this ending "Pitchfork not included".
And the memories came flooding back to my mind. I have not located a picture of my vehicle, but I'll post it separately if I can find one. Mine was brown, with a fold-down rear seat that gave us a big cargo area. The back opening was a big door and the whole door raised when opened. It was great for carrying stuff, but here is where the pitchfork came in.
The door was heavy, and the hydraulics to raise it and keep it up were not adequate. Soon the door would not remain in a raised condition but no one we contacted could remedy the fault. The solution was a pitchfork. If you opened the trunk and raised the door, then took a regular pitchfork it was just the length to keep the door up. With the tines of the fork fitted into the rear bumper and the handle end pushed into a crease in the risen back door, it was a steady prop. When you finished, just slide the fork out of its places, and pitch it in the back. We used that system without incident, but if someone borrowed the car/truck without being briefed on the makeshift solution, there was trouble. The home for the pitchfork was in the trunk, and we knew why. That back door was heavy!
There were two obvious faults with this, our farm car. The gear shift was between the front seats in the floor, and insulated with a rubber sleeve to keep the heat of the running car out of the inside passenger cabin. As that sleeve aged, more and more of the engine heat came into the cabin. It was great in the winter cold, but not so much in the summer season. The other was an economic downer. The Scout drank gas.
Both Donna and Doug learned to drive the Scout, and both had experiences that wove themselves into the fabric of family lore.
Donna was coming home one afternoon when she made a friend of the mailbox. She drove up to the box to check the mail, but got a little close and knocked the passenger side mirror from the door so that that mirror spent the rest of its short life dangling from the door held by a couple of wires. When questioned about the incident, her quip became a classic go to: "Well, that mirror was not very good anyway".
Doug inherited the Scout when it was time for him to learn and then use the vehicle. One day in winter, coming thru the McCallie Ave tunnel after a slight snowfall. the backend of the car met a Carta Bus. The bus had failed to stop and Doug got a heavy bump. It was enough to dislodge the front drivers seat which put him in an almost prone position, lying on his back looking at the interior of the car from a rear seat. Fortunately, he was not injured. The bump from the bus was also hard enough to knock off the oil filter from the oil line. It fell to the street, resulting in all of the oil running onto the pavement. Doug had to be pushed out of the tunnel by a police car which had arrived on the scene.
This very well could have been a tragic entanglement for Doug, but he was fine. The Scout however was not drivable . The Chattanooga Bus Line was self-insured, and offered us $1,600 and the disabled vehicle which we jumped at. The repair was minimal, and before many days, we had a new oil filter, and a repaired front seat.
Doug continued driving a newly painted Scout to school and other events. The new color was Imron Blue, an airplane paint that looked great on a plane, not so much on a car. But it was a McCallie blue body with a white roof and stood out in a crowd.
After graduating McCallie in 1980, Doug took the shiny blue Scout to Emory. One day it quit running and the local auto mechanic said he would get it back to Chattanooga, fix it, and take it off our hands. For a few years afterwards we would continue to see the Blue Scout around the Apison and Collegedale area.
I have looked everywhere for pictures of the Scout, but unsuccessfully. It, however, is in our collective memories. We sold it to that aforementioned filling station mechanic, where we traded while we lived in Apison. Its mental images have brought many stories to light and quite a few laughs over this time.
By 2028, this new version of the Scout should be seen around town. If you are prone to a vehicle of this type, check it out, but be sure to see if it comes with a pitchfork.
