(first posted 3/5/2011. I saw it just the other day again, in 2021.) Now that’s a very comforting and reassuring face. Something about these International Loadstar trucks evokes those feelings, maybe because of their reputation for rugged reliability. Or because I drove numerous versions and loved their straightforwardness. Or maybe it’s just because they were everywhere, the most common mid-range truck built during their long career, from 1962 through 1979. Well into the nineties, they were still hauling kids to school, delivering the produce to the market, and standing sentinel at every roadside construction project. And if you live in the right place, this one will still deliver books to your neighborhood, maybe even some on the history of International trucks.
These Internationals were so common that they almost look generic now, like a Tonka Truck scaled up to full size. It was really a brilliant move on International’s part, inasmuch as the Loadstar never really looked dated, like the over-styled Ford, Chevy and Dodge trucks of the time. If International still made them, would anyone really notice? A truly timeless design.
Actually, their predecessor that appeared in 1957 already had most of the Loadstar’s formula for immortality down, but just wasn’t quite there yet. Simple, nothing trendy; just a generic truck.
And this one, carrying a Gertenslager bookmobile body on its back for over forty years, is a particularly handsome combination. No, it’s not operated by the library anymore, but by a fellow how runs it as a used bookstore, mostly for the joy of it rather than a real viable business enterprise. “Gertie” shows up in random locations at equally random times, for a day or two at a time. And even if there’s nothing that appeals on board, it’s fun to step inside the living time capsule.
The clerestory windows make a major contribution to the pleasant atmosphere. Every RV should have them. In fact, this would make a killer conversion. I’m sure it’s been done a few times already. Now what someone needs to do is turn one of these into a bookmobile for only old car books; or better yet, just old truck books. What a nice place to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon, reading up on the history of old International trucks.
Like this tasty 1939 semi-truck and trailer. What a change from today’s look-alike boxy rigs.
Or this bright red ’39 truck picking up the Air Mail from that DC-3.
Or this lavish RV that the famous explorer Attilio Gatti drove, styled by no less than Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky. Oh oh; I think I better step out; I’m getting lost back here.
On the way back to fresh air and reality, I’ll take a quick glance at that familiar steering wheel and big stick shift. I drove a Loadstar dump truck for Baltimore County, a brief gig in my endless brief encounters with the working world in my youth. My job was supposed to be walking the streets all day with a broom, just ahead of a street sweeper, sweeping out the debris under parked cars. But I had just the ticket: a commercial license from Iowa, and I was soon trucking instead of walking.
These Loadstars inevitably had the family V8 underhood, either a 345 or 392 CID solid lump of iron. It was the same basic engine used in everything from Scouts to anything shy of the really big trucks, so they were built tough. They wouldn’t rev like the Chevy V8 trucks, which just couldn’t hide their kinship to the Corvette. But they had the torque in the cellar, and it was hard to stall one, even for the new kids trying their hand for the first time. And they thrived on the abuse.
They pretty much all came with a five speed, and the ones I drove had the split-gear rear ends, which yielded ten gears. That was a toy to keep one’s attention to some degree in those days long before handheld electronics. Instead of texting, I split gears; pulling and pushing the red button attached to the gear shift up and down, trying to avoid the tell-tale grinding from the rear axle.
Yes, there’s a lot of history in Gertie, in its books, its long career, and my Loadstar memories. I hope it keeps showing up.
Great story! You can’t help but appreciate the honesty of these old trucks. You know, I’m really not a “truck person”, I prefer the handling and efficiency of a car, but there is really nothing more majestic and well, American, than seeing a truck pulling or hauling a heavy load down the road, the way it was designed to.
I remember back in the 80’s the Ypsilanti, MI Library system had a fleet of Bookmobiles. They would come once a week and park out front of the elementary schools and those of us in the neighborhood could come and check out what we wanted. It was a fun experience for a kid, and I would think it still would be, well, at least to me…
While I prefer cars to trucks for matters of general transportation, I have quite a bit of respect for rugged, honest, purposeful tools like these. The wraparound windshield and front-end styling looked rather anachronistic as the 1970s wore on (a more modern-looking fiberglass flip nose was also an option in the later years), but the longevity of these trucks is a testament to the quality of the design. Incidentally, these were the last medium-duty International trucks to share a cab design with light pickups.
One feature of trucks like these that frustrates me, however, is the relative dearth of information readily available about them. I’d love to have a concrete sense of when visible changes occurred and what models were available in what years.
I used to own many Internationals hence my avatar and name. I once had the factory service manuals for all of there medium duty trucks of this era. I used them to keep a loadstar ladder truck running for a small lighting company. It had a 35 foot ladder powered by a big Dayton motor turning a worm drive that once actuated some part of a WWII bomber.
There are several things I remember well about that Loadstar. If you really wanted to scare a pedestrian you had only to switch off the ignition and then bump start it while still rolling. About a second later it would backfire like an atom bomb and the unsuspecting jogger would suffer a massive coronary. We drove it to Eugene from Salem for a job once. It vibrated all of the fizz out of our sodas in about ten minutes of I5 driving. And the bass on the stereo was completely useless due to the pitch at which the old 345 V8 ran. When we finally got back to Salem I felt as if I had participated in a rodeo. It was eventually replaced by a Ford F650. But I still see that truck around, still working hard.
My father was a Cornbinder man, and had a 1949 KB-11-F, a pretty good-sized six-wheeler that he used to tow low-bed trailers for hauling bulldozers etc. from one job to another. It had a five-speed main transmission and a three-speed brownie. This rig had a two-speed double-drum winch mounted behind the cab, and a removable boom that fit the frame behind the fifth wheel. We used that for lifting things such as bulldozer engines and steering clutches, and I remember loading logs with it a couple of times too. The truck wasn’t the fastest rig in the world, but it had all the power we needed. It was dead reliable, and would start after standing unused for two months as easily as though it had just stood overnight. It had the same cab as the late-30’s trucks shown above, and very similar fenders and big free-standing headlights, but a more upright nose.
Paul, you really hit a soft spot here for me. I’ll try to keep it short.
I grew up in the “Harvester” section of Broadview Il less than a block from one of International’s parts depot. My mom and dad both worked there from the late 60s up to the closure in the 90s. In fact the majority of my family worked there or at the Melrose plant or at what is now Case IH in Burr Ridge.
Loadstars, Transstars, all varieties of tractors and mining equipment rolled through that place. I’d sit at the local park and watch rail cars full of trucks and tractors come and go on the two rail spurs from the ICG Piggy Back line.Those Loadstars were everywhere back then.
My first experience driving a Loadstar came in 1993 (our village kept their trucks till death) when I was working as summer help at the village Public Works dept. It was a tanker/jetter truck. My partner was anxious to get back to the office and couldn’t wait the 2 seconds for me to light a smoke and just jammed it into first. No clutch, no grind, no stall she just started rolling.
Very neat. We had a bookmobile come to our school semi-regularly. It looked very similar to this one inside, but was based on a cab-over-engine model. Our city only had the one, and it disappeared around 1992 or 1993. I’m glad I got to experience it while it was still around. I imagine bookmobiles are an endangered species these days.
Many local councils still operate them here, they have libraries in main centres then the bookmobiles (they use a much less evocative name of mobile library) run on a schedule to smaller townships.
They are a light-duty prime mover with a pantech-style trailer to hold the books. I imagine this has an advantage in maneuverability over a rigid truck, plus of course it makes the eventual change-over a lot simpler!
My dad’s volunteer fire department still has a ’77 Loadstar pumper, complete with two massive red gumballs on the roof. I’ve driven it in the past and will be very disappointed whenever they decide to replace it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, apart from the fact it’s going on 35 years old. I doubt the department will have it in another five years. About two years ago they got rid of the surplus M715 they used as a brush buggy. While it was red and white on the outside, it was still OD green on the inside. I think the white canvas soft top probably needed replacing, but other than that it was in great shape.
Turns out only my dad, a couple other guys on the department, and I know how to drive an unsynchronized gearbox. Rather than make the rest of the guys learn, they sold the Jeep and bought a brand new 4wd Chevy 2500 that won’t go nearly as many places as that Jeep, though of course it will actually do better than 55 mph on the highway, even towing the trailer hauling a couple of those glorified 6×6 golf carts which they bought in case they actually need to go off-road. Even in rural Wisconsin the number of folks able to drive old rigs like the M715 and the Loadstar is rapidly, and likely terminally, decreasing.
Ours was a ’59 twelve-and-a-half-ton grain truck with a “cheater” axle and the 345 V8 that Dad picked up in the early ’70’s at a grain company auction. The brakes on the cheaters would overheat, causing some wild rides home from the elevator until he just unhooked them. Over the years we gradually tended to the neglect that “The Grain Truck” had suffered in its previous life, till when it was sold to my uncle at Dad’s farm sale in ’84 it ran perfectly and brought more than he had paid for it. The only lasting quirk it had, really, was a tendency for the engine to be hard starting if you let it stall in town while the elevator guy filled it with shelled corn-aluminum pistons? But, as with some other entries, a quck pull with the tractor (Farmall, preferably) and log chain and you were on your way again. I have many fond memories of working my way up and down all ten gears, bouncing up and down in those peculiar, short vertical motions that constituted “ride” in that beloved vehicle.
My older brother, Steve, drove the Bookmobile for Clackamas County back in the 1980’s… he was passed-over for a head librarian job, and ended up moving down to Palo Alto… probably a good thing, since that’s where he met his future wife!
Funny you should mention the loadstar’s resemblance to a “Tonka” toy truck. Actually Tonka never made a toy of the Loadstar, however Ertl did, in 1/16th scale out of pressed steel. You can still find them on eBay and other auction sites.
Thank you Paul. I love this CC. I remember visiting the bookmobile with my mom, in the early ’70s in Miami, FL. I would always look for books about cars. This nice old truck sure brought back some fond memories. Almost brings tears to my eyes. A mixture of nostalgia and sadness for a long lost childhood.
AH!!! You have reminded me of good-old 82-5, the school bus that took me home from elementary school every day. It was driven my the venerable Dean, who split his time between driving these beauties and fixing them in the Gordon County bus barn. With Dean in his grease-stained work shirt and the windows covered in condensation on a cold day, there was no doubt we would get home….how in the hell did that old bus make that cavernous steel body so toasty warm? Formerly runny noses instantly went crusty.
Yours was 82-5, mine was bus 35. 35 was a 1979 Loadstar frame/front clip with a Thomas body, driven by a kind-heared jokester named TJ. While I only rode the bus for 3 years, ’88 to ’91, it was my favorite bus in the fleet until its premature retirement in ’94 (state law at the time mandated school buses going out of service after 15 years). 35 and some contemporary Chevy B-series were replaced by a new batch of I-H 3600/Thomas Vista buses which, while distinctive, just didn’t have the character the old Loadster did. Fond memories of #35.
Yep, that was my second bus as well. I don’t know what year but it was in 1981 or so and it was a Loadstar with black fenders and a Thomas body. Looked a lot like this one.
Hello,
I just purchased a 1974 IH Loadstar Bookmobile with a Gertenlager body. It has been sitting for years and I want to get it back on the road as a camper. I am looking for any information and history about these old beauties. I am trying to find parts and repair info.
Any pictures would be great.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Bruce
larsonc21@aol.com
A friend’s Volvo 240DL and these Loadstars had the smoothest clutches of anything I have ever driven.
I spotted a video of a IH Loadstar/Wayne school bus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJlvlP8LfpM
and another IH with Ward school bus body
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RehBaScH6Qc
and enjoy the sound of the International 345ci V8 engine with the Allison transmission 😉
I recall there being a plastic Loadstar dump truck at my preschool
There ya go!
Curbside Classic classic – a real heartfelt touch regarding a truck named Gertie who would like nothing better than to spend some time with you showing you some books in Iowa.
Perfection!
The only “big” truck I’ve ever driven was the M35A2 (deuce and a half) we had when I was in the National Guard. This was in the 1980’s and the ones we had been used pretty hard, although they were well maintained. They had a 5 speed transmission with a 2 speed transfer case; none of that fancy “red button” stuff for us, the transfer case was shifted with a solid steel stick on the floor. When they were not heavily loaded the accepted technique was to take off in 3rd gear with the transfer case in “Lo”. We would then shift to “Hi” (still in 3rd gear), wind the turbo diesel out (yeah, sure) and then shift to 5th gear. I don’t remember exactly what it was but the shift pattern for the transmission was not logical, you needed to think about where the next gear was before you shifted.
As I mentioned above this reminded me of a bus from my childhood. When I was a kid I was fascinated with school buses, no doubt because I was on one for about 90 minutes each day. It would be pretty cool to have a school bus week sometime.
My favorite bus was a rear-engined Thomas. I have no idea what the mechanicals were, but it was the quietest, smoothest, and largest school bus I ever rode in, and it was rather sleek in a blocky 80’s kind of way. Later on we had front engined BlueBirds which were a lot coarser and uglier.
Talk about the way back machine! I rode a number of Loadstar school buses in Jr. high and. High School. Some with the black fenders, some all yellow. Quite the upgrade when they went to the tilting fiberglass hood……..something greatly appreciated by the mechanics, no doubt.
Here is a local Loadstar, beautifully restored. I wondered about the styling line through the door that ends in a bulge just behind the hood, and whether it was a local quirk because of mis-matching carry-over bodywork, but obviously not.
Last of the trucks to share a light pickup cab, as Andrew noted above? I wonder how much that would have saved versus a purpose-built, wider cab?
Forgot to upload the photo…
When I was a young lad the bookmobile visited our semi-rural school every couple of weeks. Tuesday afternoons, it’s funny what you remember after 40 odd years. Don’t know who made the body, but it definitely was on a Loadstar chassis.
I wonder if kids still line up at the bookmobile today?
The body is a Gerstenslager according to the info sheet.
The body on the pictured unit is. The body on the one that used to visit our little school in the Okanagan valley in 1971 I’m not so sure about. I don’t know if bookmobile is a trade name or just a generic term. I haven’t seen one in years.
The Loadstar and the Mack R Series are the exact images that first come into my head when I hear the word “truck,” even though I have not seen a Loadstar or thought about them in at least two decades! They were everywhere, as the school buses of my childhood, as delivery trucks, dump trucks, and so many other uses. The front end styling I remember from the big stakebed trucks with really loud engines that were everywhere during my childhood, but which seem to have disappeared since then – perhaps the pickups with similar front end styling that were mentioned earlier. These were so common, then gone, without my even noticing. Thank you for the reminder!
A mobile coffee shop/bookstore is my vision for this old bookmobile!
Theres one or two loadstars around here I saw one recently with Detroit power you couldnt miss it with the noise, but school buses and mobile libraries were built on Bedford chassis here those were the most common truck from the late 40s onward.
Could the Gaz53 truck (still to be seen everywhere in the post-Soviet sphere and Bulgaria) be derived of this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaz53_kirov.jpg
At our small rural school district, from the mid 1960s through the mid 1970s, I rode 60 passenger Superior Coach / IH school buses.
If memory serves these all had large 6 cylinder engines. I remember some real community excitement and pride when our school purchased their first
V8 powered Superior / IH bus. After years of hearing the powerful 6 cylinder models faithfully transport the community’s youngsters to and from school I recall
frequently stopping to LISTEN to the new V8 pull away from the curb.
At our small rural school district, from the mid 1960s through the mid 1970s, I rode 60 passenger Superior Coach / IH school buses.
The school district I went to had Superior/IH buses in the early 60s. It I recall, they switched to Blue Bird by the time the Loadstars showed up. I remember waiting at the High School for my bus to arrive and watching the exhaust of another Loadstar blowing perfect smoke rings. The manual trans might not have been exactly user friendly as I remember the driver sometimes having trouble getting it into gear.
A smallish Grade 1-12 private school near me had a fleet of GM school buses in the 1960s…Chevrolets from 1958, 1959 and 1964, GMCs from 1962 and 1965; after moving and losing track I looked again ten years later and saw a fleet of Loadstars. This outfit didn’t have Government grants and politically favored suppliers. Bought what was best for them, and IH was the choice.
I have ’71 International Fleetstar 2000D Fire Truck that has a Detroit Diesel 671 and an Allison Automatic.
Just read Joe Hill’s (Stephen King’s son) “Late Returns” last night. It’s a short story about a young man who takes on the job of driving a vintage ’60s bookmobile after his parents commit suicide due to their declining health. The librarian discovers that the bookmobile (much like literature itself) provides a portal in time where the deceased occasionally show up to return a book, and in so doing, close their unfinished worldly business.
It was a fun, ethereal read, much like something SK would write himself.
I’ll have to put “ Late Returns” on my list. It sounds interesting and I’m a fan of his fathers work. I tip my hat to Ezra the Bookfinder for his work and his passion. Literacy is so important! This recycled bookmobile keeps giving! Well done!
Memories for me! I sold IH’s in the late 1960’s. A basic Loadstar cab-and-chassis equipped with 304 V8, five-speed manual, Orscheln parking brake ($5.00 option), and heater we offered for $3900.00. One of my interesting sales was 22 school bus chassis equipped with Detroit 4-53 Diesels and Allison Automatics and air brakes. The optional dual electric horns were not ordered. Why bother? You could hear those buses from three blocks away. Even if you lingered over breakfast, your Mom would get you onto that bus in time! Most Loadstars that I sold were gasoline-powered with V8-345 or V8-392 engines (same block as the V8-304) equipped with five-speed, two-speed combinations, Fabulous trucks. They just ran and ran.
Tell about the Orscheln parking brake; what kind was that?
I’ve written on CC about IH trucks and buses here and here.
(first posted 2/3/2014. I saw it just the other day again.)
Great news!!!!
When I was with the California Department of Forestry in the late 70s all of our engines were Internationals like this one. That’s not my rig but it is exactly like it. They got used hard but we washed and inspected them them everyday when we were home.
That’s Ezra the Bookfinder’s bookmobile! I met him when I lived in Eugene—he had a Dodge Dart—and he’s chased down some very difficult-to-find books for me over the years.
The front cap and frame for every public school bus I rode in during the late 1960’s/early 1970’s.
The Orscheln parking brake was an adjustable cable set up. The parking brake for Loadstars equipped with hydraulic brakes was driveline mounted. Rather than spending money to have the cable tightened, for $5.00 you could have the driver easily perform this job from the cab. I looked on the internet for a photo, but the 1960’s style is not shown. Thanks for asking, Daniel!
Driveline-mounted! Shades of pre-1962 Chrysler products.
I find this, describing an Orscheln park brake operated by an overcentre-lever; is that close?
Looks like Orscheln are still a going concern.
Yes, that is the type. Very common in multi stop applications where it gets applied and released frequently. There are actually multiple benefits.
#1 in-cab adjustment
#2 consistent full application, unlike a ratcheting style where it can be partially applied, so it is ineffective and could possibly be left partially engaged
#3 speed
#4 easier to use to hold the vehicle for a start on a hill.
Note the Orschelin handle has nothing to do with the location and type of parking brake. It is used with traditional wheel mounted brakes, internal drive shaft drums and external driveshaft drums.
One of my previous Econolines that originally was fitted with hand controls and a wheel chair lift had one in it. It got a stock pedal style since when it was applied it limited access out of the driver’s door.
My 57 Dodge D-100 uses one of these with a driveshaft drum brake arrangement. It works well and adjusting the emergency brake from the driver’s seat is nice. The lever is located under the dash and to the left of the steering column. Unfortunately it is somewhat easy to bump the handle with your knee when entering or exiting and accidentally release the brake. Compounding this is the fact that my truck has the push-button, cast iron Torque-Flyte.
The early Torque-Flytes do not have a Park setting as they do not have a parking pawl. When you want to park you push the N for neutral button and pull the brake handle up to clamp the driveshaft and immobilize the truck.
There is no way to hold the truck by using the transmission. I have accidentally released the brake twice including once when I had my head under the dash and my feet outside on the ground while I had my turned to look up. As soon as I realized that I had released the brake and the truck started to roll I was momentarily and completely disoriented as I had to calculate what I needed to do and which arm and hand I needed to move in which direction from my twisted position to grab the brake lever.
Otherwise it is a great piece of equipment.
Yup that is the disadvantage of the over-center handles, depending on just how tight you have it adjusted it can be bumped off with not a lot of force.
Someone DID have a bookmobile full of old car books. I’ve got a Brooklands history of the Fiat X1/9 that my dad bought from the car-bookmobile at Barrett Jackson ‘89 or ‘90.
Not sure if it was a Loadstar. I’d forgotten about that bookmobile until I read this article!
We had two IH’s on our fire dept, a 4900 brush tanker with 1500 gallons and a 2500 with 2500 gallons. Both ha the dead reliable DT466. THe Loadstars transported us out to the firing ranges at Ft. Leonard Wood in basic training however. Good memories.
I drove one of these across the US in U-Haul guise. Inexcusably bad front seat and AC that couldn’t adequately cool the small truck cabin. Of course being U-Haul maybe it was low on refrigerant or something. Next time some years later: Penske Chevy. It was perfect.
We just rescued a bookmobile that someone was having towed to a junk yard. It belonged to their brother in law who passed away about a month prior and they were left with his estate. If anyone has any information on this bookmobile like the what engine is in it? or point me in the right direction, I have had no luck searching the internet. Thank you in advance!