Junkyard Find: 1974 International Harvester Scout II

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Here in Denver, the Jeep DJ-5 often shows up in Junkyard Finds. Another truck that forms a regular part of The Crusher’s diet in Colorado is the International Harvester Scout. Yes, there was once a time when a farm-equipment manufacturer made highway-legal light trucks, and the Scout was (and is) a Colorado favorite. Here’s a battered ’74 I spotted a few weeks back.

In this series so far, we’ve seen this ’70 Scout, this ’71 Scout, and this ’73 Scout. Today’s find has a bit of rust, a well-worn interior, and seriously sun-bleached paint.

Oh yeah, and it appears to have had a minor rollover mishap.

When IHC needed to add instructions for window-regulator replacement, they went for combine-harvester-style stenciled instructions rather than the decals that the Detroit Big Three would have used.

I’m pretty sure this is the 304-cubic-inch IHC V8, but I don’t know enough about these engines to distinguish the 304 from the 345 at a glance. Either way, it’s a little four-wheel-drive truck with farm-grade V8 power!

The blue-and-white two-tone paint is more like light-blue-and-off-white by now, but it probably looked great when new.

Are there any Scouts without a hunting- or fishing-related window decal? No, there are none.







Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • ICARFAN ICARFAN on Aug 29, 2013

    Had one of these in the family, even powder blue, but with a different stripe. V-8 and 4-speed all restored or rebuilt, canvas top and roll bar. Loved it for off-roading and top down cruising in the summer. But while driving it on vacation I got stuck in a traffic jam and working that clutch for 45 minutes in stop and go traffic was enough for me not to buy it when it was sold. So these basically are a redneck convertible for me, nice for the weekends, but not a good daily driver.

  • JD MAINT JD MAINT on Sep 20, 2013

    drove one on the farm as a teenager in the 70's the dang thing out climbed almost any other vehicle on the farm including the old K-5 Blazer. I tried to drive it threw a brick wall once after an argument with my dad but the whole wall fell down. I scratched the paint a little. on the old beast. I was tring to prove the point an Old timer told me, "you could drive them things threw a brick with barely a scratch."

  • ToolGuy "Honey, someone is trying to cross the moat again"
  • Rochester "better than Vinfast" is a pretty low bar.
  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
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