(First Posted December 15, 2011) ED: Eric sent me this list of his favorite IH ads. I’m just going to let these speak for themselves, as they’re mostly pretty eloquent in conveying the Cornbinder world-view. But do note the contrast of this 1966 Scout ad to the ’66 Corvette ad. International was wee a bit more conservative.
This is a classic, extolling the Travelall’s 10,000 lbs towing capacity
This is the print version.
Going back a decade to 1961.
And the 1969 Pickup.
Here’s a Canadian Compact pickup, with six foot bed and the Scout’s four cylinder engine. US version was the 900. (ED: Amazing how much that looks like the Toyota Stout pickup of the same vintage)
A Scout II ad from 1973.
And tv too.
Another tv ad.
Back to 1964: home delivery. Maybe folks were intimidated to go to an International dealer.
Sure, who wouldn’t?
And an Australian Scout tv ad.
You know what I like about that first video? They actually had the guts to admit the Travelall was a wagon, instead of calling it, as marketeers do now a SUV, which is an oxymoron. Making a station wagon tall doesn’t make it sporty.
Yup all the literature and ads for the Travelall refer to it as a wagon, often in the head line too. In the early days a vehicle pretty much had to be built on a dedicated chassis to be considered a Sport Utility.
There are actually a number of other companion print ads to go with that TV spot. One of them is of it on the grade. Funny thing is that when you look closer the trees are all slanted. They rotated it a few degrees so it looked like the road was steeper.
Love the towing ads Bunce Chevrolet in NZ has copied it for their TV ads to show off their new trucks the fact its illegal unless you have a heavy trailer licence isnt mentioned.Quite rare beasts here now Scouts seemed to rust quite alarmingly and survivors arent often seen.
Pretty snazzy short-wide-box truck shown in front of the antique shop there. But on the ground they were nearly nonexistent – fewer in number and lower in percentage of the total than any other manufacturer, I suspect – most Cornbinders I saw were long-box trucks, and a pretty high percentage of them were 4×4’s too. I think people who wanted a short-box truck mostly just got a Ford or a Chevy.
Yep. Popularizing pickups required domesticating them. Car buyers who were switching to pickups for general household use didn’t want to be intimidated by them, and didn’t want to project an intimidating image. Now that pickups are mainstream and every bit as domesticated as cars, many pickup buyers want to project an intimidating image, even though the trucks are for household use.
The predecessor of BMW X6, Acura ZDX, et al? Making SUV more stylish and upscale by slanting the rear windows…
Chevrolet truck commercial 1957
I can’t help thinking that if International had hung in there a few more years it would’ve caught the SUV popularity wave of the ’90s and survived.
As I’ve noted before the management of the Scout business unit predicted a SUV boom was coming and had plans to capitalize on it.
The ad for the 1980 touting it’s power train warranty is especially interesting. The SBU made their hail-Mary pitch to the board in late September or early October 1979. So I wonder if they slipped that power train warranty in there at the end of finalizing the 1980 models in an attempt to ensure their future existence and buy them a little more time. “We’ve got to keep servicing dealers out there for a few years so they might as well have trucks to sell too.”
Still love those old IHs even though I was raised to hate their tractors (as the son of a John Deere salesman.)
CC effect: Saw an early ’70s Scout this week, similar to your 6th picture. Looked and sounded original, but atypically the driver was a young woman. Definitely not OEM. Sounded like an inline 6 with automatic, not V8.
“Chicago 1, Illinois”—-interesting because Wiki says Zip Codes were introduced in mid-1963 (not overnight, obviously), which seems to align with the 1964-model ads being on the cusp of all this.
Those digits after city names were postal zones which predated ZIP codes by about 20 years. They were used as an aid for manual sorting in larger cities. The actual ZIP code (and I think you are correct with 1963) was 5 digits and for use with every address no matter where.
Am I the only one that noticed in the “aunt Martha” ad, that IH told you to NOT call it a truck?
“If you’re pulling any ONE of these, you may be killing your car.” I did THIS with my 2011 Ford Ranger about a year ago–the Ranger is still on the road today! Now I gotta do it with my 2005 Chevy Astro…that’ll be a treat! Word to the wise: unhitch BEFORE backing up 🙂
I love these. With a big IH presence in my home town of Fort Wayne, I never gave a second thought to seeing Internationals on the streets, and the ads were just part of normal background.
The 1st pic was the optional,,, Aristocrat, top. Trying to look less, TRUCKY. And a fear of the Bronco & late 1960’s Jeepsters stealing the attention.
No the top ad is for the Sport Top as is mentioned. There was also a soft top version of the Sport Top. The Aristrocrat was a “doll up” package that didn’t come to market until the Sport Top was discontinued. It had its own special roof rack and two tone paint.