Junkyard Find: 1971 International Harvester 1200D Pickup

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

I find quite a few International Harvesters in junkyards, mostly because I live in Colorado and the IHC Scout makes sense here. IHC pickups, though, aren’t as easy to find. We’ve seen this ’62 Travelette, this ’72, and this pickup-related ’71 Travelall in this series, and now I’ve found this well-used ’71 pickup in a San Francisco Bay Area yard.

I’m not sufficiently tuned in to the International Harvester world to be able to tell a 304 from a 345 V8 at a glance.

Looks like this truck made a trip to Garberville, hundreds of miles to the north of this yard, before something broke and it took that last tow-truck ride.

As long as a truck can still carry a load, it’s worth something. When it’s 44 years old and a type that doesn’t have a huge following, though… well, The Crusher awaits when it needs a major repair.

Apparently, IHC didn’t consider Dodge trucks as real competition back then.

No IHC ads here, but you can get a sense of just how long ago this truck rolled off the assembly line. 45 years of work for this machine.





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.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 27 comments
  • Carson D Just don't be the whistleblower who reports on the falsification of safety data. That's a deadly profession.
  • Carson D I'd have responded sooner, but my computer locked up and I had to reboot it.
  • Todd In Canada Mazda has a 3 year bumper to bumper & 5 year unlimited mileage drivetrain warranty. Mazdas are a DIY dream of high school auto mechanics 101 easy to work on reliable simplicity. IMO the Mazda is way better looking.
  • Tane94 Blue Mini, love Minis because it's total custom ordering and the S has the BMW turbo engine.
  • AZFelix What could possibly go wrong with putting your life in the robotic hands of precision crafted and expertly programmed machinery?
Next