The International Harvester Story

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. I'd welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I am Ben. We
are as always joined by our super producer. Oh gosh,
it's hard to think of a nickname for Noel today

(00:24):
because we're looking into really rich story with a lot
of references and a lot of references. So, man, I
don't know we whould even attempt right now to give
him a nickname or or you know, here's what happens.
Usually we say we're gonna think about it during the show. Well,
sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't, you know, so
maybe we should how about case on the case on
the case on the case. Yeah that'll tie in somehow.

(00:45):
Yeah that will we'll run into that. Hey, but how
about done an older refrigerator? Brian, I was thinking the
same thing. I was thinking, like the fridge, because that's
that's the cool name or the cooler? What was that?
There was a movie I can't remember who was in it.
I know it's William Macy and I know why. You
know why my wife calls me the cooler when we
go to Vegas and uh, and there's other things too,

(01:06):
and this is funny, like it's it's very it's derogatory,
I mean towards me. But she calls me the cooler,
and uh. And there's a lot of situations where I realized, like,
oh god, everything turned around when I showed up. And
it's true. I mean, gambling is just not my thing.
But when I show up at a table, like it
cools the table. It really does. And here's a weird
little tidbit, a little little tiny thing of this in

(01:29):
that movie. Guess what kind of car William Macy drives?
What I don't. I haven't seen the me. He drives
a sixty seven Chrysler Newport no Way. Yeah, yeah, and
I think it's blue. I think I haven't looked it
up in a couple of years, because, you know, just
searching for the car and you know, parts and things
like that along the way, and also looking up the
cooler to remember exactly what it was about when I've
been called that. Man, you are the cooler. I have

(01:50):
been the cooler in Vegas. Yeah. I I literally could
probably get a job as cooler there. Just so you know,
ladies and gentlemen, the cooler thing in them is sort
of the ultimate version of the bouncer, right, the final
forms of the bouncer. Uh. And the idea is like
I'm going to ease the situation down. However, Scott, it

(02:13):
sounds like what you were being called in this in
this context of gambling is sort of a bad luck child.
Well that's what he is. Really, It's not it's not
so much a bouncer thing like you said. It's more
like he was if a table was hot, it would
send the cooler down to just kind of also play
the table. But I think what happened, excuse the odds,
is what happens really in that case. But he also
it was it was more like just his presence really

(02:36):
caused the table to cool down. It wasn't a hot
table anymore so that the the casino was not losing
money as fast as they had been, you know, moments before.
And I think the weird thing in that story was
like once he fell in love or something, Uh, then
he Yeah, it was like he no longer was the cooler.
It was like his his whole attitude change and everything.
So it was a cool story. It's an interesting I

(02:56):
like William Macy by the way, Oh yeah, William Macy
is good. You know what m h Macy william eight.
Oh hey, get it right. Uh. You know, it's weird
that we're talking about this because I think the film
I was thinking about for some reason was Roadhouse. Do
you remember Roadhouse? How can I forget road Out with
Patrick Swayze? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking.

(03:16):
I was thinking of that Cooler, gotcha? Okay, so they're okay,
so you're not the bar fight ending cooler. No, no, no,
I'm the show up and uh this is terrible show
up and things kind of go down from there. Just
gambling though, you know, I've never gambled, really, I well,
I guess I've had a lottery ticket before. Yeah, that's gambling.

(03:38):
Does that help, I guess. So it's not pulling the
handle on a slot or anything like that, or you know,
like putting ten bucks down on a roulette table, but
it is still gambling. That's a that's a gamble. You're
you're spending your money hoping to win more money, but
you might lose it. All right, Well, okay, here's the thing,
and this is such a derailment, but we'll we'll get
to our actual show. We promise we've profits. Uh, So

(04:01):
here's the thing. Sometimes at our office here in Atlanta,
our one of our coworkers will pull people's money together
and they'll play the lottery collectively. Yeah, this is when
it goes above a hundred million or something. Right, he
has a system that is, you know, well thought out,
but it can't be that great because we've never won.
And uh, well they've won. We've won a little bit

(04:23):
of stuff. So I'll play the lottery when a bunch
of my coworkers are doing it. I'll throw, you know,
five bucks to the cause or whatever. But to me,
I'm not doing that to win. I'm not gambling. I
am getting insurance essentially because although there's in practical terms
there's no chance that anyone will win. But I'm paying

(04:46):
that five dollars Scott, so that if someone wins, I
won't be miserable for years. Well, you won't be the
only one to show up at at work on Monday,
that's what you're saying, right, Are you kidding? Would you
wouldn't show up? If you want? If this stuff, well,
you know what, Honestly, I might do it. I might. Yeah,
I don't know. I'm not even really sure. I guess
we get to do what we love, so why not?

(05:08):
And uh, it would be interesting. I get weird with it,
My hours would get weird. I'd be smug. I try
to buy the entire company. You would, you would, you
would definitely tell them what you were what you will do,
right right, Yeah, conversations with management would change and uh,
and we you know, we'd make a few new things.

(05:28):
But speaking of fantastic segues, that's a long way to
go to get here, isn't it. Yeah, it's a long
way to go. And we're talking about a long story today.
This is something that came to us from a listener
that was a long time in the making and a
very patient listener, and we and we thank him for that.
This is uh, this is one that we have probably

(05:50):
mentioned on a couple of nuts in both podcasts. Is like, oh,
we really got to get to that. Well. I got
a note from this person just before the holidays this year,
and it was a polite note, you know, And I responded, again,
as I always do, like it's on the list. Pearson.
The guy's name is Pearson Pierson h And I said
it's on the list. And I said, you know what

(06:11):
I've I've I've been wanting to do this one for
so long. I'm gonna put it on a post it
note and I'm gonna put that on my desk. And
I said, I know that sounds funny, but that's actually
a big step in this process. Is like it finally
it moves from the big list, you know, the one
that we we always say like, well, yeah, we're gonna
added to our list, and we truly do have that list.
I'm gonna move it from that list over onto my
desk and then I'm gonna start to really dig into
this topic. So I did that, and uh, and here

(06:33):
we are today. We've got it for I got it ready,
we got it ready for Pierson and uh, White Ben.
I went back into my email and search for how
long Pierson have been asking for this podcast? And I
found the first instance where he asked for this. And
I had to go back to our previous employer, the
the the email box that we saved when we shifted
companies from one to another, so back when we were Discovery,

(06:58):
way back in that file, I found something from May
of Whoa It's Golden Oldie. That's a long time, but
we're talking almost three years. Pearson has been patiently waiting
for this topic. So so good for you, you know, uh,
you know that you hung in there with us and
we appreciate it. And yeah, here, I'll just read the note.
It says, um again, it's from Pearson in um Richmond, Virginia.

(07:23):
He says, I wrote you once before regarding your podcast
on antique license plates. I had a Beater nine pick
up with antique tags on it. You're nice enough to
give me a pseudonym when you just when you discussed
it on the podcast. I hope, oh boy, I hope
we didn't do that today. Anyway, The truck is gone
and has been replaced by a nineteen sixty nine International
Harvesters Scout eight hundred eight. It's my project car and

(07:46):
it's sucking up more time and money than I care
to admit. But it's got me thinking though, that International
Harvester might be a cool podcast topic. He says. If
that's too narrow, perhaps one of the early stvs in general,
like Scout, Land, Rover, Bronco, Jeep, etcetera. Well, along the way,
we'll talk about a few of those two, but we're
gonna focus on international and um, I guess mostly on
the Harvester Scout model. I'm sorry, the Scout model rather,

(08:10):
but we're gonna have some tractor history and some boy,
there's gonna be some refrigeration history. There's gonna be rifles mentioned,
military devices. There's a lot of stuff. Um. So he says,
there's been a lot of articles out there saying that
these may be the next hot collectible. Now this is
piercein Sands, and I invite listeners to think about this
carefully because I I ever since I read this, and

(08:32):
I this is one of those lines that's kind of
stuck in my head because every time I go to
one of the you know, the local antique car shops,
you know where you can buy the restored classics or whatever,
I'm finding that I'm seeing a lot of Broncos and
jeep and um, you know the old land rovers and
even vehicles, yeah, even international Scouts. There's not a whole
lot of those, but um, you know the Harvester Scouts

(08:54):
are around there. Um. More so, I'm seeing a lot
of Broncos when I go uh, Toyota land cruisers, Um,
you know, seeing just older vehicles that um, he's He's right,
it's kind of a a niche market, I guess for
the collector at this point, and it's definitely more popular
than it was. And I've got some kind of information
here along the way to back that up. I could
read that now if you like. But um, all right,

(09:16):
something I found from auto blog, and this is also
going back to I think this is this might be
what he was mentioning. UM. The title is classic STUV
is the next big thing for car collectors. And and
you know what would make them think that, what would
make them recognize there's going to be a trend for this. Well,
well Haggard, the insurance who ensures a lot of classic cars,

(09:36):
has noticed that there was and this is again three
years ago, noticed that there was an uptick in UM,
not only UM in auction prices and things like that,
but also the number of SUVs classic SUVs that were
insured by the company. It's growing. It grew up sixty five,
went up six since two thousand eight, So between two
thousand and eight and two thirteen, up six and that's

(10:00):
twice the pace of the overall market. So things like
Toyota Land Cruiser, there was a that was the largest
jump up two hundred and two percent, with a number
of insured vehicles in that in that time frame, Um,
through the nineteen seventies nine jeep models they went up
something like nine. In the same time frame, the Ford
Bronco and International Scout they jumped up by eighty six

(10:20):
and eight. Just this huge rise in popularity SUVs in
general was noticed by Haggarty early on, and UH and
Pearson caught onto it as well. And UM, I think
today's UH podcast will tell us. We'll show us rather
that he's not far off. I mean we I've just
noticed this on my own out in the field. So

(10:41):
on the field sounds like that, sounds like I'm surveying
or something. But I have noticed it around town. So
it is true. And to explore this we are going
to have to start not in but more than a
century ago. Yeah, we like this way way back. That's

(11:02):
the thing with this international brand, and this is gonna
be it might be a little bit confusing along the way,
and we'll try. UM. But but of course there's International Harvester,
there's the International Harvester Company, which are our H and
then I h C, respectively. So if we read that
that acronym, that's what we mean. UH. There's also a
bunch of different brands in the agricultural division that we'll

(11:24):
get to. Uh So, we're gonna talk about International Titan, Mogul, McCormick, Deering,
McCormick itself, farm All fair Way, and then another small
brand called Electoral, which I think is kind of fascinating.
But um plus more, there's gonna be more along the way,
so it will get a little bit confusing. We'll try
to straighten it all out. Hopefully we'll do a good
job of it. So, so, Ben, I didn't mean to

(11:45):
interrupt you. You started more than a century ago, so
let's uh okay. So our scene begins in eighteen thirty
one outside of a bar in Virginia. It's a perfect
place to start the story. It's called Steals Tavern. Now, listeners,
I'm just gonna take a gamble and say that one

(12:08):
was before our collective time. Uh So, this is the
same year that the University of Alabama is founded. This
is the same year that uh Nat Turner leads a
slave rebellion. There's a lot of stuff happening, so it
was easy for people to miss this guy, Cyrus Hall

(12:31):
McCormick and his invention, which he displays outside of this
bar in Virginia steals tavern. He displays the first successful
horse drawn reaper. Its a mechanical reaper, and you wouldn't
think that's a huge deal, but of course in one
it was all you know, you're you're doing this by
hand at that point, you know, reaping the field by hand,

(12:53):
and it's a very tiresome process that's very takes to
take a long long time to clear any sizeable amount
of land, and this takes care of that. This doesn't
much much faster, right, and this so this initial invention
is amazing. People outside the bar are going, cyrus, You're
a genius. How how did you ever think to invent

(13:14):
something that works as well? And he's not done yet, Scott,
because later he uh, he improves this and has a
self raking feature at it. Yeah, so that first one
would cut ten acres a day, which as much as
five men could do. So it's a significant increase in
in uh in productivity of course. And later you know
the self raking feature that he adds onto it, and

(13:34):
then they can cut forty acres a day. So this thing,
and you know it's eighteen thirty one doesn't patent it
until three years later in eight until eighteen thirty four.
But this is really the very beginning of the International
harvester Um Empire, I guess really eighteen thirty one. And
and along the way, somewhere about ten years later around there,
ten or twelve years later, he meets up with a

(13:55):
guy named Jerome increase Case. And that's a weird name,
isn't Jerome increased Case. Yeah, it reminds me of increased Mather. Yeah, yeah,
you're right, it's a straining it's a strange name. Yeah,
not as common anymore. But but that guy, Jerome Increase
he establishes the Racing Threshing Machine Works in Racing, Wisconsin.
And it's a few years later when Cyrus Cyrus Hall

(14:18):
McCormick comes back again and establishes something called the McCormick
Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago, Illinois. So we're up in
the uh, I guess in the Midwest, but the northern Midwest,
really right. And the McCormick Harvesting Company does really well
because they have a couple of things going on. First,
they have an amazing product in the Reaper and later inventions. Uh. Secondly,

(14:42):
they have a very aggressive sales system, so they have
probably they have a warranty that is functionally like if
it breaks, just bring it back and we'll fix it
for you, essentially, and then they have a network of
branches they help people with at it for purchasing a machine. Uh,

(15:03):
they're selling these things like hotcakes. Sure, yeah, it's a
it's a popular thing because you know, it's so it's
such an advancement. It's like it's, uh, well, it's hard
to even put this into today's terms. I guess, like
I can't even think of a modern invention. Maybe that
would be similar, that would like instantly increased productivity like that.
I mean, I guess maybe going from electric typewriter to computer.
Maybe that's pretty good. Maybe that's it. But even bigger

(15:25):
than that, maybe because it was really everything was so
agricultural focused, not only in the area that he was in,
but but all around not just the United States, but
around the world. Really because he is he is marketing
this um worldwide. Because in eighteen fifty one, McCormack's mechanical
reaver earned a gold medal at the Royal Exposition at
the Crystal Palace in London, England. So you know, he's

(15:46):
entered the European market at this point, so he's he's
an international guy. And then we're just getting to the
point where, you know, I mean, just to put it
in context, I mean, we're we're like approaching the point
where like the the U. S. Civil War begins. So
so that's how long ago we're talking. And and and this
has been going on for you know, thirty years at
this point, or twenty five years or whatever, you know,
way back into the eighteen thirties. When Cyrus invented that

(16:08):
that reaper. I doubt that he had in mind that
he was gonna be receiving gold medals in London. Yeah,
and uh, you know, of course expanding internationally, right, Yeah,
I mean you dream big, but I don't know if
he had quite dreamed quite that big at that point.
It just it just really took off. So from eighteen
sixty to around eighteen sixty five, the Civil War in

(16:29):
the US is as as a consequence of this event,
there is a tremendous expansion and mechanization of agriculture. Right,
so people want more reapers, they want more threshers, more mowers,
and the use of that stuff expands dramatically. Jerome Case,

(16:51):
remember Scott mentioned him just a second ago Jerome Increase Increase.
You can't forget that middle. That's the best part. So
so our buddy Increase takes on three partners in eighteen
sixty three, and he's got this. Remember he's got this
crude thresher company out there in Wisconsin because of the

(17:13):
availability of water. But now he's calling his company the J. I.
Case and Company. So, uh, a little bit easier to read,
you know, a little bit easier off the tongue. I
guess the J. I. Case Company. And of course that
will be short the case later on. But um in
eighteen sixty nine, the J. I Case and Company j
J I guess that's kind of strange to read that.
I guess the J. I Case and Company produces the

(17:35):
first steam engine tractor. So this is this is the
what they call Old Number one, which you can see
at the Smithsonian. Yeah, isn't it crazy. It's it's on
display at the Smithsonian. Now it's wheel mounted, but horses
still had to kind of move this thing thing thing around.
And really the only thing I was used for was
belt power, so it's driving other machines. It's something that's
that's uh, you know, even you can haul it around

(17:57):
on your property or even to the neighbor's property or
whatever it But but anything farther than that probably isn't
too too easy to get to. It's it's a massive machine.
And it took fifteen years. This this machine was a
little bit ahead of its time, if we're being honest,
because it took fifteen years before steam engines boomed. Yeah,
and they're still calling an attractor at this point, which

(18:18):
I find interesting because it's not what we think of
as a tractor by any means. This is again not
not exactly stationary, but it's not driving itself at this point. Yeah. Yeah,
So here's all these little, these little facts along the way.
Now we're getting towards the modern arey, and I promise
we're gonna get to the vehicles and all that stuff,
you know, the more modern stuff. But man, this history

(18:38):
is interesting because weird to think about it. But in
eighteen seventy one, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed mccormicks mccormicks
factory in Chicago. Ye destroyed a lot of stuff in
one of those One of those buildings was his factory.
Eighteen seventy one. It's hard to imagine, like you you've
lost everything in the Chicago fire, the Great Chicago Fire.

(19:00):
Uh that is it just seems like it was so
so long ago. At this point, it's it's amazing to
think about how long this company has been around. Um. So,
after that factory was destroyed, Case steps in and says,
I'll build machines for you, because remember cases in Racine
and up in Wisconsin. He says, I'll offer to build
machines for you. But McCormick then refuses and decides to

(19:20):
build a larger facility in southwest Chicago called the McCormick Works.
And this place is way bigger than the old place.
And also, just while we're here, I don't know about you, Scott,
but I'm pretty sure that Mrs O'Leary's cow thing is
a myth. You think so, I think so? Yeah, Well,
I mean if he dug into this, dude, you it's

(19:41):
just a little too clean, little too a little too convenient,
you think. So. I'm you know what I bet? Um,
I bet our friends over at stuff you missed in
history class have probably done something. I bet they have.
You should check out that that podcast, and maybe there's
already something on this I will check on it and
get back to everyone. So, look, the McCormick Works is
pretty profitable, bigger and better, bigger and better than ever.

(20:04):
And so at the same time that McCormick Works is happening, well,
instead like a what about seven years later eighteen seventy eight,
Case ships its first thresher overseas, but instead of London
they go to Paris. Yeah, and you know what, I'm
gonna go back two years prior to that, because they
did something that's kind of little known. I suppose in

(20:24):
eighteen seventy six, Case built their first self propelled traction
steam engine. And this is kind of weird. It's self propelled,
but horses are still used to steer the engine, which
all this is still strange to me. It's like, what
it's not. They're not putting it all together yet at
this point. And I guess that's the way these these
great inventions happen. It's it's incremental. But I just don't

(20:46):
understand why they didn't see it coming. You know, it
seems like you, if you're going to create something that
is self propelled, why not make it steerable as well?
But I guess horses are still needed for that we'll
also think about the tremendous volatility of steam engines at
the time. Yeah, that's you know what I mean, just
getting them to go is already Yeah, he's already tremendously impressive.

(21:07):
That's true. Alright, So well you added a couple of
years later and he said that he had he was
importing or exporting, right, Yeah, the first thresher that case
ships to UH Paris at the Paris Exposition, it wins
first prize and then people put it to work on
French farms. But just two years later, all right, the guys,

(21:31):
this is gonna this is gonna be something that pops
up in this show often. We're gonna talk about name changes, right,
and so in eighteen eighty the J. I Case and Company.
You're right, that is difficult to say that partnership is
dissolved because Case was working with three other guys at
the time, and in its place arises the J. I

(21:53):
Case Threshing Machine Company. It's a seems like a little bit,
a little bit of a hair splitting difference, but it
has implications for the business later because that year or
excuse me, one year after that one, economic warfare begins
and I think this is so cool. This is a

(22:15):
lot of this is history that a lot of people
are not aware of. The Harvester Wars. The Harvester Wars.
I like it, I know it, just it sounds like, um,
some kind of dark fantasy. So what was happening in
the Harvester Wars? All right? So in the Harvester Wars
there was a period of intense competition and bottoming prices.

(22:37):
People were racing to the bottom to have, uh, you know,
to sell the most with the lowest price that they
could possibly still make a profit on and sometimes even
taking a loss, which is something that businesses do today,
you know, sometimes a like printers, of course, are probably
the best example of this. You sell a printer at

(22:58):
a loss so you can make the money back with
the ink. Oh that is so frustrated. And maybe you've
hit on a hot button point for me because I
could tell the price of the printer is the same
as the price of the ink refill, right, so, and
you can buy a brand new printer with ink in
it for the same price as you can buy the refills.
So it's just it's maddening to it really is maddening

(23:19):
to ye. So, so they're racing the bottom. This is
and this is something that's not sustainable. You have to
you have to you have to make a profit otherwise
you're not gonna be in business. And at the same
time these uh, at the same time they're expanding, at
least McCormick is expanding this. This is because this isn't
necessarily because of the horse shown reefer at this point.
This is because they invented a twine binder. Twine binder, okay,

(23:43):
twine binder, and they had a lot of competitors. Now
when you say twine binder, that reminded me of this
kind of like like list of things that International has
built along the way. And there's and there's gonna be
more added to this, I promised, But for like as
far as agricultural items, uh, they're refs, their tractors, uh
commercial and consumer grade. And then there's also balors and

(24:05):
combines and manure spreaders and uh you know, milling machines.
And you said twine, right, there's a twine baylor twine binder, yeah,
I guess, and stationary engines and uh, feed grinders and
just there's all kinds of agricultural items. And you can
go into any you know, agricultural um manufacturer's shop today
or showroom maybe and see just a huge variety of things.

(24:26):
And International has been doing a lot of those from
the very beginning. Yeah. They in many cases they invented
the equipment. Well that's true. Yeah, a lot of these,
a lot of these come from this company. They were
a huge powerhouse in the agricultural world at that point. Okay, Scott,
I hate to say it, buddy, but we are spending
a lot of time on tractors and I don't want
I don't want this to be one of those podcasts

(24:49):
where you and I get to the very end and say, oh,
also there's the International Scout. It's like my favorite party,
you know. And we never intended to talk about tractors
as long as we already have. But you know, there's
there's actually some fascinating stuff. Is so interesting. Yeah, what
do you say we skipped through the Oh you know what,
there's there's two things. We're gonna skip through this timeline
a little faster now from this point on. But there
was something that you mentioned just a moment ago to

(25:10):
me that you said you absolutely wanted to cover, and
that was a Jerome case freak out. Yes, yes, that
is my that's my term for okay, the Jerome Case
freak out really quickly. So you know how we talked
about Henry Ford and past podcast how crazy he was
and how he actually tore apart one of his own cars,

(25:31):
lost his mind when they when they wanted to change
the model. T right right. So Jerome Case also has
some eccentricities. He will go to people's farms, make a
personal visit to someone's farm if if a case thresher
or steam engine is not performing, and then he will

(25:53):
repair it himself. And this is tremendously impressive to people
when he goes to uh when he goes to the
Minnesota farm and says, I'm here, I'm like the owner
of this company, but I want to repair this one
machine because my name is on it. And when he
can't repair it, he loses his mind. He threw it.

(26:16):
He soaks the thing with kerosene and sets it on
fire and is saying like I am disgusted that this
ever made it out of my factory and leaves what
The next day, these bufuddled farmers received a new case
thresher like that and it works perfectly well, hopefully told

(26:36):
them before he left the farm, and he's going to
ship another one. I mean, but but holy cow, he
burned down their machine and and wow, that's what a
temper on that guy. I know, I know, that's just
that's that's what I call the Jerome case freak out.
And I just wanted to I just wanted to establish that.
You know how many times in this last week I
wanted to soak something with kerosene and burn it because
I would have moments like this all the time if

(26:58):
I could, if I could get away with it, I would,
I hear you mumbling sometimes during the media. Sometimes sometimes
I want to soak that laptop with kerosene and just
walk out. I feel you, man, that's why they don't
let us have kerosene in the Yeah, that's probably why.
That's why we had that rule. That's like, that's like
rule number three of this uh this building. Yeah, yeah,

(27:19):
it's range now and now makes sense. So let's go
back to seventy's let's go um, let's go forward to
the future. All right, where do you want to go?
I mean, we can step through it, I guess, because
there's a few things here that are kind of uh
stand out events for me, and and really if we
do that, we then get onto some of these more
interesting to US automobiles and things like that. Yeah maybe

(27:41):
maybe that's uh, that's where we go. How about that deal? Okay?
All right, So when there's some other sides stories along
the way that so many of these, that's a good
it's a good story, this whole thing, alright. So in UM,
I think it's the case built the first gasoline tractor,
called the Patterson Tractor. It was not successful, and they
didn't build another gas tractor all the way until nineteen eleven.

(28:03):
So they put this thing on hold from eight until
nineteen eleven when they thought there was a market for it.
So they actually had it just kind of in the
in the in the I guess, in the storage area,
waiting around how that happened, because they're still messing around
with steam at this point. They're still building steam tractors there,
steam engines rather um. Alright, and then here in nineteen

(28:24):
o two, this is kind of a big one, and
I think what we should hit on this one. In
nineteen o two, the International Harvester Company is founded from
the Deering Harvester Company plane manufacturing company. The Champion Line
and Milwaukee Harvester Company on July nineteen o two. So
this is really the the birth of the International Harvester
Company in nineteen o two from all those other companies

(28:44):
that uh they absorbed, I guess. And they do it
with the help of a fellow named JP Morgan JP Morton.
And that's the name we still here today. Right, it's
a it's an investing firm. But we we were just
talking about a re a movie that has JP Morgan
in it, right, Oh yeah, the big short, Yeah, the
big short. Yeah, it's the bank yep, not the individual.

(29:07):
Well yeah, that's right at at that point. But this
is actually the guy. This is the this is the
founder of the company Epidotus. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, um, yeah,
they will they find it. They arranged and financed this whole,
this whole corporation of the very beginnings of International Harvester Company.
And if we go forward again and we're again we're
just stepping through this whole list here. So um, you know,

(29:30):
this thing is growing along the way year by year,
getting bigger and bigger. And after about ten years, remember
we said, they put that tractor kind of on the
back burner, in nineteen eleven. They released the first gasoline
tractor called the thirty sixty UM in nineteen eleven, and
then eight years later they came out with something called
the commercial PTO, the Power Takeoff. It was never around
until UM nineteen nineteen, and International Harvester was the first

(29:54):
company to develop that. And also at this point, around
twenty percent of their branches are outside of the US.
They are a um, what's a leviathan. Yeah, there's gigantic,
just enormous inside. They're huge international company. Um bye. There's
a guy named Bert Benjamin who built the first successful

(30:16):
row crop tractor, which was called the farm All. Now
farm All is another brand name that we hear because
it eventually became its own brand name. That was just
a model at that point, so, um, I think I
called it the farm All Regular at that point, but
it wasn't. It wasn't its own brand. It was just
a model at that point. So later it becomes that, right.
The farm Mall has a couple of things that put

(30:38):
its streets ahead of other tractors. So it's got a
lighter design, it's power to weight ratio as superior. It's
got a narrow front with one wheel for guiding, right,
and it has precision steering. So these this agglomeration of
more sophisticated qualities makes it just a better tractor design.

(31:00):
Early nineteen twenties. So you know these things that sound
old us, I mean it looks like an old tractor
design that's brand new to them. This is this is
a cutting edge at this point. And I just want
to say, there was another war at this time, the
tractor price wars. Well, yeah, in addition to World War One,
and yeah, we're at the time in between, I guess, right,
So so there's World War One, then there's the tractor Wars,

(31:22):
and then there's World War Two. So what's the alright,
I mean, I hate to put it that way, but
that's what's going on. Right. So so in the in
that time between World War One and World War Two, um,
in ninety six, and this isn't a huge deal, but
Harvester red number fifty was adopted for all international Harvester tractors. Now,
we've talked about race cars, and you know how certain
countries have different colors for the racing vehicles and that

(31:44):
signifies that well, kind of like John Deer with their
green and yellow paint. Scheme International Harvester has Harvester Red
number fifty and then if you want to step way
far ahead, so we're getting closer to the modern day,
which I bet a lot of people are saying, thank you. Um.
In nineteen sixty three, Case had one hundred and twenty
five distributorships in subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France, South Africa, Brazil,

(32:06):
in Australia, with fifteen licensees in other countries. So again,
of all U S production is shipped overseas by nineteen
sixty three, So this company, Um, we're now what that's
like a hundred and thirty years into the history of
the company, though at that point in eight or nineteen
sixty three, that's a long long time. But man, have
they grown. This is a huge, huge company, is It's

(32:26):
so it's so weird that this company could be so
prolific and so widespread and often so little known. Yeah,
that's true. You know what, And you know what? I
found one more quick little note on the paint color,
which I thought was interesting. We said it was nineteen
thirty six when they had the Harvester red. In nineteen
eighty three, Case had to change the color of their

(32:47):
ninety four series tractors too black and white, which was
an unheard of move for them, because you know, they
had the standard color. The government regulations banned lead paint,
and all red and yellow paint happened to contain lead,
so they were able to use their company colors on
these vehicles at this point, so they had to switch
over to black and white. Men. All right, then, so
we're we're jumping all over the place in the timeline here.

(33:08):
So I mean, we said we wanted to speed up.
So here's the what we'll do. I'm gonna read just
a brief bit of information here that hopefully we'll just
kind of encapsulate this whole. So, so again going back
to nineteen o two, and I'm not going to go
through any more history really, but in nineteen o two, remember,
JP Morgan merged the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and the
Deering Harvester Company, along with three smaller, smaller agricultural equipment firms,

(33:30):
to form what is known as International Harvester in International
Harvester then sold off almost all of its agricultural division
to a company called Tentaco Incorporated UM, who then merged
it into its subsidiary, which was j I Case and
under the case I H. Brand Um. Following this this
term of you know, this agreement that International Harvester had

(33:50):
put into place there, uh with with Tennaco, they said
that the International Harvester would be the brand name I
guess would be renamed Navistar Internet Corporation, and that happened
in nineteen six and dizzy from all the names. Well,
you know, honestly, Ben, it's so confusing, and we tried
to get through that tractor stuff as fast as possible,
and believe me, that is the fast version of it.

(34:11):
And I know it's hard to believe, but you know,
we've got a lot of listeners that right in and
want to hear about some of that agricultural stuff. And
I know that well, I know the Pearson wanted to
focus on the on the vehicles, the International Scout vehicles,
and I think we can get to that at this point. Finally, finally, yeah, finally,
there's a lot to get through and some other side
stories along the way. But what so we have to
go to nineteen fifty nine where the Scout eight model

(34:34):
was released. That's the that's the first international Scout model. Yes,
so international Harvester was building trucks and pickups and stuff,
and since nineteen o seven. This is not their first rodeo, yes,
but they were very very different things. So fifty three
they have a truck based people carrier called the Travel
All right, we talked about that, But the Scout itself,

(34:56):
the idea comes in nineteen fifty nine and from nineteen
fifty nine and nineteenth I guess it comes out in
nineteen sixty, right, nineteen sixty model year, Yes, that's right,
So nineteen sixty to nineteen sixty five they've got the
original Scout a D. This is like the predecessor of

(35:17):
many SUVs that you would see today. Yeah, that's strange,
isn't it. Like they didn't call in an suv at
that point, but when you see them on auctions today,
like a Barrett Jackson auctions or whatever, they'll call it
um an early suv, even though it wasn't really termed
that at that At that point, it just wasn't a
known term. They built it to be a jeep killery,
built it to to be competition for the very popular

(35:39):
G Yeah, the c the CJ in particular, which was
the civilian version of the Willie's jeep that it was
kind of the carryover I guess from the military World
War two jeep that they used. And one thing that's
really cool about the Scout eight is that originally it
had a folding windshield. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool.
There's a lot of really interesting stuff about these vehicles. Now. Um.

(35:59):
One thing that I I learned on a recent auction,
I was watching a Barrett Jackson auction and um just
had it on while I was doing something else. You know,
I think a lot of people do that. And one
of the vehicles to come across the line was an
International Scout and I don't recall exactly what year it
was or anything of the copper color one. One thing
that they mentioned was that, um, it had all flat glass,
every piece of glass, and the thing was flat. And

(36:20):
that was because of manufact it was the easy to
manufacturer that way. It was very um cost effective way
to do it and easy to replace and you know
all that. UM so little things like that along the way.
We'll pop up here about these about these vehicles. But
you want to hear just kind of an interesting story
about the chief designer of this whole thing, Like how
the whole thing. Um, I guess all came to be

(36:40):
because within International, they International Harvester. Uh. They kind of
had the idea that they were going to do this
because they again, as you said, they had been building
these light duty trucks from nineteen oh seven all the
way through well they continued through through nine seventy five
or something like that. Um, very different vehicles from the
Scout models. But um, around this time they said, well,

(37:01):
we need something that's going to compete with the Jeep.
We need something that you know Ford's well I think
Ford later came out with the Bronco. It was much later,
but um, that type of vehicle. Uh, they didn't know
if it was going to sell or not because there
wasn't really a market at the time for a four
wheel drive recreational vehicle. And that was the that was
the whole idea behind the Jeep. And they thought, well,
how are we going to have our own spin on this.

(37:22):
So the chief designer of this whole thing, the guy
that was tasked with designing this whole, this whole project
I guess out of nothing really. His name was Ted
Ornas spelled O r n a S. And he knew
that this was an unknown market, you know, it was
kind of a risk at the time for them to
do something like this. And the original design was very,
very flat, very square, had no body contours at all.

(37:43):
Of course, the flat glass plays into that too, but
can you imagine, I mean, looking back at the at
the Scout eighty, that to me looks very square, but
it was even more so than that at this point.
And you know when the when the higher ups I
guess the program directors or whoever you know above the
chief design or looked at this, they decided, I don't
know if this is really something we want to jump into.

(38:03):
It doesn't look like a great design. They weren't thrilled
with it, and and the program almost died. It never
it almost never happened because of that original design. So
Ted goes back to the drawing board. Literally, I think
it was like a kitchen table design that he came
up with, you know, one night, just kind of just
save the program. He said, I gotta do something because
this whole thing is going to go away, and I

(38:24):
really believe in it. So um he um, literally on
his on his kitchen table, he sketches out a brand
new design that's similar to that one, but it has
more contour to it. It's more it's more detailed. I
suppose UM and shows it to the company exactly the
top guys and they all said, you know what, I
like where you're going and where you're going with this,
and actually we're gonna we're gonna revive this program based

(38:46):
on this new design. So they kept it and UM.
The new design was was called this is kind of strange.
This this called for UH. In order to save save costs,
they were going to have good Year build a plastic body. Yeah,
the plastic body. Can we talk a little bit about that.
Let's talk about it. Yeah, and and the good Year
would do it. Now. The reason that Goodyear was chosen

(39:08):
to do this is because they could do UH these
massive you know panels that were required for this vehicle
in plastic, and plastic was relatively new at the time.
It was it was something to carry over from World
War Two, right, Yeah, Goodyear was one of the only
companies that had this manufacturing capability, and it was directly
because they had UM. They had really focused on producing

(39:30):
plastic parts for the Allies during World War Two, and
they have formed a large plastic engineering group, specifically for
that purpose. So in nineteen fifty nine, you know, good
Year is working on this model stuff and looked at
their their cost, like what's the cost of making this

(39:51):
plastic stuff? Yeah, yep, and uh and they finally you
know how it works, right, I mean, they come in
with initial bid and and then it creeps up a
little bit more and if you want to do that,
it's gonna be a little bit more expensive. And the
cost of the thing kind of went away. If they
I don't know if they came to the senses and
decided that this is gonna be an off road recreational vehicle,
we made it need to be a little more tough,
uh than than a plastic vehicle. I don't know exactly.

(40:13):
I don't know exactly what the deciding factor was to
go away from the Goodyear product, but they decided that
they were going to actually stamp this thing out and
steal it was gonna be a steel body and uh,
and they went with that, even though the cost was
going to be more. But maybe it had kind of
leveled out a bit with the plastic body design. It's
very expensive to do to do something like that, and
I just don't know exactly the one factor that switched

(40:35):
their mind. But they did end up with a steel body,
and so this thing went through. The whole project from
start to finish was really really fast. I mean the
development time was really really quick, right right, Well, how
how quick was it? Twenty four months, which is unbelievably impressive. Yeah,
very and remember twenty four months, that's a super fast

(40:55):
pushed through. So they had a clay model by July
of n and I think it was approximately November of
nineteen nine when they released this this vehicle as the
nineteen sixty model year. Yeah, and people loved it. Yes,
this this was it's it's difficult to it's difficult to
really convey the popularity. But this we can talk about

(41:19):
some of the packages they did. Like the very first
special package they had on the Scout eight was the
Red Carpet Series, all the Red Carpet Series, very nice,
very aptly named. Oh yeah, and it was to celebrate uh,
selling one hundred thousand Scout eighties. Nice. So they're they're
very very popular people. Obviously, you know what we said,
It was a kind of an untested market at this point,

(41:40):
other than other than that c J, which really wasn't
the exact same thing. I mean, this is a think
so a little different. It's not dramatically different, but it's
just enough different that they were able to carve out
their own, uh you know, their own market, I suppose.
And they, you know, they're continually innovating. So the iconic
Scout eight by, it's it's pretty much iconic, is replaced

(42:02):
by the Scout eight hundred. Yes, now that is okay.
There's there's a couple of models here. It's basically the
same design. There's a few upgrades, electric wipers, newer engines,
things like that. System. Yeah, and there's there's two models
here actually within the eight hundred model year or model
model line. I guess maybe. Uh there's the eight hundred
A and the eight hundred B. And I believe Pearson

(42:22):
said that he had an eight hundred A, so that
was somewhere in between nineteen nineteen seventy. Uh, the eight
hundred B was between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy one,
and then that gave way to the Scout eight ten
in nineteen seventy one. And here's kind of an interesting note. Uh,
in nineteen seventy one, those Scout eight ten models and
I think there was only one year that those were produced.
Some of those early Scout two's, which is the next

(42:44):
model year, which also our next vehicle. I guess that
debuted in seventy one. They contain Scout eight ten badging
in the glove box, so kind of a carryover thing
that happened in production and then um later in nineteen
seventy one. Scout two came out from nineteen seventy one
till eight and and um, this was well, this one
is a little bit different. This one. Standard production models
had removable soft or hardtops. They had a one inch wheelbase. Um,

(43:09):
it's just along the way. They make these small changes,
but stuff that people are asking for, right, Yeah, they're
they're pretty responsive to their customer base. Some of the
I guess you could say, some of the DNA from
the old days of horse drawn reavers and threshing machines
still carries on. So they are listening to what their

(43:31):
customers want and they're continually approving. I gotta ask you, um,
just a personal opinion. Out of the ones we've discussed
so far, which do you like the most. Oh, we're
through the Scout too. I like the original. I like
the I like the Scout E D And I also
like the Scout eight hundreds, I guess, so anything prior
to one, I think, what about you? You know, I'm

(43:53):
really I'm really interested in the International Scout too, man,
because the especially no listeners who have checked out some
ore earlier podcast you know that we're big fans aesthetically
wood paneled cars, and so I associate that to me,
that feels very seventies, you know, And maybe that's why

(44:15):
I keep going back to the Scout too. As as
my my favorite could be. Yeah, I mean that shape.
I can see that working as a wood panel, a
fake wood panel side or something. Let me wait, let
me amend that. I'm sorry, I should say my favorite
car to realistically drive because that Jungle Safari trailer is

(44:35):
probably the you know, the white the White Whale is
so impractical. Alright, So, so where are we in the
timeline here? Think we're just at the Scout too, right, right,
we're just at the Scout. Well, okay, the Scout two
was produced fight and and there's only seven total models here,

(44:56):
but there are also a number of special editions of legations. Yeah,
we're on the what the fourth or fifth one at
this point. But um, within the scout To um line,
I guess there was also the scout To Terra, which
is built in nineteen and this was kind of like
the light pickup truck version of the of the Scout
two and had a longer wheel basis one has stretched

(45:16):
another eighteen inches, so it's a lot longer than the
standard scout To model, right, and it has a fiberglass top. Yeah,
I think, well, I think the one you're talking about
is the scout To Traveler. Oh yeah, well there's the
Tara and then the Trap Traveler. Okay, so uh, the
they they both had some form of fiberglass top. Okay,

(45:37):
got it, but they were but they were different. Um,
and I think there was a hatchback like lift gate
on the Traveler. You're right, So the Tara was the
pickup truck version. The Traveler was more like the wagon. Yeah,
like the suv looking version, right, and um, you know
the fiber last hard tap to you mentioned there was
a third row of seats, which was not all that
common I guess in that type of vehicle at that point,

(45:57):
because I think about what's competing with around this time
time around you know, the mid seventies, early eighties. UM,
it's competing with the well, the cars I've read before,
the Ford, Bronco, UM, the Jeep, the what's another one,
the land Rover. I guess you know, there's you know,
those those boxy suv esque vehicles. You can't call them
SUVs even at that point. But UM so that's that's

(46:18):
kind of its competition. And then in nineteen seventy seven,
between nine and nineteen seventy nine, there was another model
so again within the Scout two line. It was called
the Super Scout too, the soft top Safari too. Yeah,
the fabrics, so it also had fabric doors to right
at a roll bar, um, you know, soft top as
you mentioned. UM, I think that there was also UM

(46:39):
an S an s S version if you want to
call it that. UM stood for Super Scout instead of
Super Sport in this case, and they were and these
were really popular in off road racing during the seven Yeah.
In fact, they had some national or international championships I
believe right in the on the off road racing circuit.
Uh So it did very very well. They were they

(47:00):
were well liked by the the people that that did
that kind of thing at that during that era. UM
Special packages, special packages. Let's like special packages, all right.
As as you said earlier, Scott, there aren't uh, there
aren't exactly a wealth of different model lines, but there
are a wealth of variations and modifications and special packages.

(47:23):
So there's the Shawnee Scout, which is uh, it's like
a feature package and it's produced by someone else. Well,
this is interesting because this is probably the h I
guess uh, this is the most rare of all international Scouts.
Oh by far. Yeah. You know you know how many
men were produced? Right? Right? Yeah? Three three vehicles produced

(47:45):
of this, one for you, one for me, one for no.
That will work out perfect, right, Yeah, I'm sure they're
not tucked away somewhere in a museum, right, but they're
only three Shawnee Scouts produced ever. Um. Now, the difference
with these things was they had you know a lot
of trim features and things like that too it but
mainly it was built by dressing up a black s
S two. So again that uh, what do we say?

(48:05):
It was super Scout, Super Scout, that's right, Super Scout
to sport with special tomahawk and feather decals, special seats
whatever that means, black target style top, a hard ton
of bed cover and of course a Hearst shifter, right,
all right, so that's kind of cool, But it's not
anything like you know, it's not like a complete overhaul
of the vehicle or anything. It's mainly an appearance package.

(48:26):
I mean, I know there's the her shifter and there's
some other dress up type items, but um, it's really
not like you know, this is like the the only
one the V ten engine or something. Oh and I'm
gonna drop a drop of reference here that maybe we'll
come up later in the podcast. Uh, the fate of
Hearst Performance. Do you remember that, Scott, The fate of
Hearst Performance. They were eventually bought by Sunbeam Products, and

(48:49):
Sunbeam makes small appliances. Okay, so should we should we
take it right now? Should we do it? Because let's
let it sit for just a little bit. Okay, you
want to talk about sports special package, I do. Let's
spend a special packs and then we'll get to and
please don't tune out at this point because there's something
really fascinating going on with appliances and it's like your

(49:09):
favorite part. It's a theme that is carried throughout the
past seven or eight years with us. But I finally
think I have a good handle on the whole thing,
and and maybe this is maybe today, Ben is the
is the explanation that will make sense to both you
and I. Y autom manufacturers also built home appliances. You've
been digging into this one. Yeah, I had weight. I
was excited when you told me about this off and
it goes other directions too, So there's more to it

(49:31):
than that, So hopefully you'll hang around for that. So
let's jump right back in with the with the selective
edition Scout too. Uh uh. Nineteen seventy eight to nineteen
seventy nine, they had some gold accent stripes. This was
all about gold gold spoke wheels, right, They had a
sports steering wheel, good Year track or eight s black

(49:54):
grill insert and then they had other options you could get, Um,
you can get upgrades on the seats, the interior, cruise control, radios.
You had a couple of options for your power train
as well. Yeah, different colors you could get with this thing,
you know, radios and stuff like that. So again that's
a lot of appearance type type of trains. It's such
as a power train exactly right. Yeah, So then later

(50:16):
in the nineteen seventies there was the Spirit of seventy
six and the Patriot Special editions, and the Spirit of
seventy six was of course the US Bicentennial edition, Right,
I think this was cool. Yeah, this is kind of cool.
It's has a special blue soft top, blue and red
side applica which is only available on the Scout too.
And then the Spirit also had a blue interior racing
type steering wheel and seventeen inch chrome alloy chrome rally

(50:40):
wheels rather um, and I think that you know, it's
a low production number, not as low as the Shawnee Scout. Yeah,
more than three. But here's the thing, although we know
it's rare, we have no idea how many were created. Yeah.
I mean the ballpark though, is right around just under
four hundred. Right, that's that's just guess I suppose. And
that's that's based on the number of line tickets that

(51:01):
were given out for this, because some of the Patriots
were built without being designated a line ticket code, and
that that line ticket is really important and and you
know it sounds like kind of an inconsequential thing, but
the line ticket is what designated you know, what would
go on that vehicle, how it was to be built,
and you know a certain code number like indicated a

(51:23):
deluxe interior um sixteen eight seventy two indicated a blue
interior color, things like that, Right, So if you had
this line ticket that had all these codes on it,
that that you know, the factory codes code. I believe
that it was attached to the underside of the hood
as well on the vehicle. But you know, we're also
handed one when you bought one brand new, it was
you know, part of the sale. So there's one that
stays with the vehicle, one that you've got kind of

(51:44):
your own personal records. And people covet these items because
if you've got the line ticket code for your vehicle,
you can bring it right back to original based on
everything that it it came from the factory. I think it
came from the factory. So this is very important for
a collector to have something like this. It's it's I guess,
and I don't know if it's quite as important, but
think about like numbers matching cars. You know, where the
you know, the Chassison lines up with the you know,

(52:06):
the the number for the engine lines up with the
number for the body codes and all that. So, um,
it's it's really important for International Harvester owners to have uh,
you know these uh what it called the line ticket,
the line ticket, the line ticket because it gives not
just the designation for cosmetic stuff like color codes, but
also for you know, power training. Well, imagine if you

(52:27):
had one that was like, let's say it was brown.
You know, at this point and you look back at
your line ticket, you realize, wait a minute, this one
had the you know this applicate on the side. Oh,
I've got a I've got a Patriot model here that
has been painted along the way. Yeah, it could be
something that's you know, valuable to you in that way
that you could restore it back to original and it
would be uh, you know, authentic, could be real. So yeah,
so this is important and this is a way to

(52:49):
into gauge the history the original state of your vehicle.
In this case, you're scout, here's one that I think
probably it has my my favorite name, you think. So
it's just such it's so weird, man, it is kind
of weird. You're talking about the Midas Edition. Yeah, nineteen
seventies seven to nine eight UM International Harvester gets with

(53:11):
an outfit called Midas Van Conversion Company, And if you
follow us on Twitter, which we're more than welcome to
do your car stuff hs W and uh, every follow
gets us a little bit further away from being fired.
As I like to say, that's always always good, always good.
But if you check us out on Twitter, we were
lucky enough to have our listener Ryan right into us

(53:34):
with a um with a link to a documentary called
vann In and it's about the van lifestyle that van
enthusiasts have in their conversions and stuff custom vans, custom
vans which are so cool sometimes and then just so
tacky other times, but by god, man, I love them. Yeah,

(53:55):
there's still something really cool about vans, isn't there? So
the Midas edition has some of this, this and inspiration,
the most seventies stuff you can imagine. You know. It's
got the swivel bucket seats, it's got shag carpet, of course. Course,
it's got shake carpet, of course it does. It has
a colored keyed interior. It has door panels and headliner
and and grill guards and sunroofs dual sunroofs, which is

(54:17):
kind of cool. That's all would have to share. A sunroof.
Well you know hasn't Well you can see that. Yeah,
you've seen that in customed vans before, like crazy, you know,
crazy window shapes and things like that. So um, overhead
clocks and third row seating and you know, tinted windows,
vendor flare and stuff like that. So um. They have
a lot of different models too. They have the family Cruiser,
or you could buy just the Cruiser. Uh. They also
had the street Machine and the off road vehicle. And

(54:39):
then of course there's another company that gets in on
this game too, called the Van American Company out of Goshen, Indiana. Now,
the first one the Midas was Minus Band Conversion Company
was an elk Art. Well, you know, you think it's weird.
But then here's the point that we didn't mention early on.
We should have all these International Scouts were built in
Fort Wayne, Indiana. Yeah, that's where the factory was. We

(55:01):
should have mentioned. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, we've
been up in we've been up in the Midwest. You know,
we were talking about Wisconsin and Chicago in that area.
But but the International Scouts were built in four Wayne, Indiana,
and so it makes sense that they would go to
Van manufacturers in elk Art and the Goshen uh to
complete these conversions. Now, I guess they did a similar
type thing with the Van American vehicles. You know, it's

(55:24):
similar to the Mike I guess to compete with the Midas, right,
but they're they're way they were way less prolific. Yes, yeah,
they're and they're really really rare today. So if you
can find one of those, you know, outside of the
Shawnee version, I guess. Uh, these were also a rare
option hold onto it, yes, safe special package, I should say,
not options. So while we're talking about specials, where more

(55:45):
appropriate for us to go, my friend, than to one
of the rarest models produced by I h the nineteen
special limited addition rs Scout only of at belong the
Traveler only into Hitian Red. Yeah, so this one is
more I don't know, is it? This is the most rare.

(56:07):
I don't know the production numbers. It's one of yeah, yeah,
I guess so, I don't think anything is gonna ever
be uh. I think that the rarest would be the
Shawnee Scout. I think so, I mean the only three Yeah,
well there's only three unless unless they only made two
of these I'm not sure. I don't have production numbers,
but but this this one had things like polycast wheels
with that you said, Tahitian red metallic accent. That was

(56:28):
the paint color for the body. By the way, Um,
it had plush vluur russet interiors. You can imagine what
that was like, right, Um, including the headliner advisors that
were also done in that vluur um special pin striping,
wood grain trim, instrument panel and shift console. That sounds
kind of nice. That's us. It's classy like a van

(56:49):
Um chrome bumpers, tin and glass, had a lot of
other things going with it. And then while we're in
night and the last year, I guess we should talk
about the two other special editions or special packages of Rawford,
and that was the forty four and the four thirty
four gold Star models, right, so they had the standard equipment,
but they also had three eight which was nice heavy duty, clutch,

(57:09):
heavy duty and uh you know AM radio rear seat
uh am radio. You could get an AM radio on
that thing. Welcome to the future, my friends, was right.
So you know, I wasn't standard even put FM at
that point, and cassette wasn't really big by then, I
mean it was just gaining ground. So it's funny when
you look at that, like it was a big deal

(57:30):
that they put an AM radio and sorry I derailed,
you know it is I think it is a big deal.
I don't we take so many things for granted. I
know I'm going to sound like an old person when
I say this, but every time, every every time that
I'm just stuck in traffic listening to the radio, I
end up staring at it like this piece of alien technology.
Radio is amazing. It is pretty amazing. Um so I

(57:51):
I'm still like back in the nineteen eighties going radio
is amazing. Uh and you know, maybe insight to here
right home. Maybe I'm being in anachronistic person, but anyhow,
it didn't just have the radio. If that was the
big thing, that would have called it the radio model.
Yeah that's right, the A M model. Yeah that's Scout AM.

(58:11):
So now they they didn't call it that. This is
these are the special packages. And uh they have like
think of course, things like side application and paint on
the lower body which wasn't around a black black carpet. Yeah,
big deal, right, But they also had um different rear
axle ratios and things like that too, right, I mean
it wasn't it wasn't all on the surface stuff, right,
Which I gotta be honest with you, man, I am

(58:33):
glad because it irritates me sometimes. I don't know why
it gets on the nerve so much when there is
a custom package that comes out and it's entirely cosmetic. Yeah,
there's a lot of that. I know. I know I
should be I should just chill out and be cool
about it, but it bothers me, you know, it is.
It's pretty rare when when a when a special edition

(58:54):
package comes out and it means like something completely different,
Like you get a different engine, you get a different suspension, right,
get a substantive difference instead of a special color of paint. Well,
you're gonna pay for that through the nose too. It's
gonna be a lot more money. So maybe that's part
of it too, you know, Like I can get this
version for that, but you know, if I pay another
eleven grand I can get this version. Um that has

(59:15):
to pay a play into the you know, the decision
to go through with that product, right, And I get it,
And I do admit that I like the spirit of
seventies six and the Patriot. I think I think they're cool. Um,
I just you know, I gotta again, as I said,
I need to just be cool with people putting out
special packages even though they in no way change the

(59:36):
performance of the vehicle. You're trying to tell me that
red stitching on the seats and the steering wheel doesn't
change the performance of a vehicle. Are you trying to
tell me that because we can fight right now, we
can fight right now, We're going to go outside and fight.
Oh no, okay, no, we're Kidding's not a good idea.
Get out of the studio because there's expensive stuff in there. Boy,

(01:00:00):
no old refrigerator, brown what had a had a look
of surprise. He's like a bouncer in there. He's the cooler, alright,
so you know the cooler. Okay, Well we're back to
it because I promised that we would talk about this
and I don't know, this is one of the most
more interesting angles of this whole thing. And I know
it's not as cool as you know, talking about the
vehicles themselves, because those are really fascinating. You know what,

(01:00:20):
there's a whole history with the light trucks that we
probably could cover in its own podcast. Still, we really
just grazed over that in the nineteen o seven to
one nineteen I think before we get into the appliance thing, though, Yeah,
I want to give listeners some background. Ladies and gentlemen,
this is your first episode of car Stuff. Thanks so

(01:00:40):
much for dropping by. You are about to hear what
I hope is a solution to a problem that has
bewildered my my co host and I for six years. Yeah,
six or seven, six seven, We've been talking about six
or seven years. We've been trying to figure out are

(01:01:00):
longtime listeners you guys know this as well. We've been
trying to figure out why there is a strange and
surprisingly common relationship between vehicles and small appliances. Yeah, and
it seems like they it's common link. It seems like
there's so many automotive manufacturers that also create things like,

(01:01:22):
you know, mixers or refrigerators or toasters and things like that.
It's so strange, isn't it weird? It's really weird. So
I think I may have the answer here and and
this is the best version of this that I've found
so far to date. Anyways, but at least the best explanation,
so International Harvester. Oh, here's a little bit of trivia
that you may not know. Ben. This kind of led
me to this whole thing. On the series Friends, I

(01:01:45):
never watched Friends on the series Friends in and I
don't even know who these characters are, but there's a
character called Chandler and Monica out of Touch, I am.
I don't know who they are. They had an apartment,
I guess, and in the background in those apartments you
will see a refrigerator. The refrigerator is an International Harvester refrigerator,
which is relatively rare because they only made them for

(01:02:08):
a very short amount of time. I'll tell you about
that in just a minute. But I think that's just
kind of like a little bit of pop culture mixed
into it, and that kind of led me to this
whole thing. Because International Harvester also made home appliances, and
of course they're best known for their farm equipment, you
know that stuff like that. You know, the agricultural stuff,
right and and then later, uh you know, the light
trucks and then the Scout models and you know the
off road vehicles and all that. But um, it was

(01:02:31):
a it was a household name really and on farms
all across America. Well it really all around the world.
As we said, for a long long time prior to uh,
you know, them building automobiles at all. So it was
it was a common thing for International Harvester to be
known among farmers. And then they thought, well, how are
we going to get ourselves out of the fields and
into the into the home. And the weird thought, isn't it,

(01:02:54):
but how are we gonna get those farmers wives to
know about this as well? I don't mean to sound
sexist at all, but is exactly who they were targeting
with us. They were targeting the farmers, farmers wives with this,
knowing that the farmers would say, that's a quality product.
I want to I wanted to. Uh, I'll support that
purchase or whatever. Okay, again, trying not to sound sexist,

(01:03:14):
but I'm gonna do my best. So International Harvester develops
along the way a refrigeration equipment uh division, I guess,
And they built things like refrigerators, air conditioners, freezers, you know,
like walk in freezers, big meat freezers and things like
that for um, uh you know, for let's well, yeah,
I mean you're on your farm, you're creating your own
food and you're canning stuff and you know all that

(01:03:36):
and so so, um, maybe that's a bad example canning
stuff you put in the cellar, but um, they've got
their own meat or whatever. So so along the way
and around the same time, you know, we're talking like
just prior to World War Two, maybe right around that era, UM,
other auto manufacturers teamed up with other companies that also
had refrigeration units. So Ford teamed up with Philco. Chrysler

(01:03:57):
had this division called air Temp. Generals had Frigid Air,
the Nash Kelvinator Corporation, and then later American Motors had Kelvinator, Studa,
Baker had the Franklin Appliance Company, and Crossley had its
own Crosley named or Crowsley branded refrigeration unit. So these
refrigeration divisions are key to this whole thing. If they
didn't build build refrigerators, are freezers or air conditioners or whatever,

(01:04:22):
that wouldn't happen. And when you think about it, Okay,
the refrigeration unit is important because they use a smaller
version of that in their cars when they make um
air conditioning systems. So that's so that's important. So they said, well,
you know, why not merge these two. We can make money,
you know, doing all kinds of stuff like that. That
that sort of matches up like that. Well, the International
Appliant or International Harvester Applans division was originally developed to

(01:04:43):
manufacture these commercial grade items to farmers, and a lot
of these farmers had just then received electricity on the
farms that they worked on. So so imagine this, Ben
It's like World War two and this this happened on
my grandfather's farm. I talked to him about this several
times in the past. They didn't get He lived in Manacello, Indiana,
right near um Um, Indiana beach on lake I think

(01:05:06):
it's Lake Schaefer, and they had this kind of out
of the way farmhouse was out in the middle of nowhere,
a big family. But they didn't get electricity until after
World War two. Can you imagine they lived on that
farm for well, he lived there for like thirty years.
He came back after the war, went back to the farm,
and that's when they got electricity. So, um, all these

(01:05:27):
farmers are just now getting you know, electrified, I guess,
and you know, all across the United States, and of
course they wanted things like milk coolers and these walk
in freezers, you know, for the produce and meat that
we just talked about UM and the International Harvester. As
I said before, they were trying to kind of court
the farmers wives in a way that you know, made
it attractive to them. This this appliance would be attractive

(01:05:48):
to them. So they had and this is very clever, Ben.
This leads to another whole discussion here. But they had
a spokeswoman for these products and her name was Irma Harding.
Now Irma Harding was not real. What, Yeah, not real.
It's not a real person. Now there's and and there's
versions of this. I mean like I'll get to explain
it in a way that will make sense. But it's

(01:06:09):
actually Irma Harding is a factory trademark for the international brand.
It's not really a person. It's sort of like like
Betty Crocker was. Betty Crocker is not a real person.
Betty Crocker is an is an idea, I think, And
and they're there are people that played Betty Crocker, and
there's people that played Irma Harding like the Marborough Now
see Irma Harding. That's very clever. I h you know
Irma Harding and yeah, exactly like the Marlborough Man. There

(01:06:30):
are a lot of people that played the Marlborough Man,
but the Marlborough Man is more of an idea to
sell a product. And that's exactly what Irma Harding was
for International Harvester. It all makes sense. So they had
this huge uh campaign where they had lots of really
nice print ads and you can find some of these
and they're really they're they're very well done. But they
have the refrigerator front and center. And then they have
ways that this IRMA Harding character who is drawn on

(01:06:52):
these uh you know, on these advertisements, a way too
customize these these appliances for your kitchens. You can add
fabric to the front of the thing. You can add um,
you know, handles that have different colors. They might have
ten different colors that can coordinate with other things in
your kitchen. So they're really playing into this uh and
they call it, uh feminine. I'm trying to get this

(01:07:14):
name right. It's it's like it's like feminine engineering, but
it's uh feminineering. Oh, feminaring, that's feminearing, that's it. Yeah,
feminar ing. So this is one of the first examples
of feminearing products. And this is so straight now that
the person that created this now IRMA, well, I'm kind
of getting ahead of myself here, maybe I need to
this this is These were two women within the company

(01:07:36):
headquarters that were kind of, um the inspiration for this character.
This irma harding character. Uh. One's name was Zelma Purchase
and the other one's name was Olive White. But they
aren't the ones that are portrayed there. That's kind of
like their persona. But the image or the face that
was used for the you know, for the the artist
prints for these ads was a model named and far

(01:07:58):
spelled p f A r Are And the artist his
name is um Hayden Sunblom and Hayden Sunblom is somebody
that you all know, but you don't really know who
he is. I mean he's he's the guy that is
also responsible for Anjemima that character. He's also responsible for
the Coca Cola Santa Claus character. He's also responsible for

(01:08:20):
the Quaker oats Man and lots and lots of pin
up models. He did a lot of pin up designs
um so I don't know. And he also did um oh,
the sprat Boy. I don't know if you've ever seen
the sprat boy for Coca Cola. It's another campaign. Yeah,
so it's kind of interually. He's a he was a
Finnish illustrator, you know, out of Finland, and um, it's
just it's fascinating to me how they took this, this

(01:08:42):
idea that we're gonna have uh, this irma harding, you know,
with the i H initials that it's gonna they're gonna
sell our International Harvester freezers or refrigerators to to the
farmers wives. And this era, I mean it played right
in the air perfect with the Coca Cola Santa Claus
character at the Bay Crocker character and all that stuff
has really interesting, um interlaced history to it. I mean

(01:09:06):
they all relate in some way or another to each other.
It's really it's just a fascinating time in history, and
it is weird. It does make sense from a manufacturing standpoint,
but this femineering move, which is which is really interesting.
I want to see what our coworkers Kristen and Caroline
think of it. Yeah on stuff, Mom never told you, Um,
when when you look at it, what a status symbol

(01:09:29):
it must have been to have this refrigerator. And the
marketing was so well done because there are recipes that
require refrigerator. Refrigerator, sure, and people today seek out these
International Harvester refrigerators. It's a it's just like anything else.
And can I I know we're running late, but can
I take just one moment to mention something that I
don't know if I ever have. Please? When I first

(01:09:49):
moved here to Atlanta, I know that people seek out
these these these appliances the way that some people seek
out classic automobiles. And I ran across one of these cats.
When I first moved here or to Atlanta, I was
selling a washer and dryer set that looked like it
came from the nineteen fifties. I don't even remember when
it us. But they were in perfect shape, perfect condition.
I've got photos of them that I can I can

(01:10:10):
show you later, but they're classic nineteen fifty type design, right.
I put them online on Craigslist or something like that.
The guy that called me was very excited about coming
out to see them. Right. I had lots of photos
and he came out and he was super jacked about
seeing these these these things. Right, So not only did
I show him this, and he was very excited. He
wanted immediately as soon as he saw them, he knew

(01:10:30):
exactly what he wanted. He also wanted to see the
washing and dry that I was replacing those with. And
I showed it to I mean, I thought, well, okay,
copsh them. And this guy was so excited. He's like,
oh my god, aren't basket washers so cool? I love
this to you know, He's like telling me about these
features in this thing, and he was, he was he
was talking with the enthusiasm of somebody that was there too. Uh.
You know, look at it. Look at a classic vehicle.

(01:10:52):
And that's the only thing I can compare it to
because that's the way you know you and I think,
I guess, um, you know, if you were going to
someone's garage and then you were to see next to
it's something also exciting. You would probably talk about that
a little bit. But his enthusiasm, his excitement for appliances
in particular washers and dryers. He he had this encyclopedic
knowledge of these things. It was unbelievable. He gave me
so many little facts and tidbits about the set that

(01:11:15):
we were looking at right then, and when I saw
in him, I almost wanted to keep them. By the
time he had left, you know, well, I helped him
carry him out, and we were very careful about it,
and he apparently he had many of these in the
storage that he was just hanging onto. I don't know
what he would do with them, but it was just
a really interesting character. And so I know that appliances
like this, like the International Harvester refrigerators and other other

(01:11:36):
devices that you know you'd find around the farm I suppose,
or other appliances are are just you know, highly sought
after collector's items at this point, and some people are
just hungry to get these things in their collection. Hey,
maybe this guy's like, uh, like Scrooge McDuck or something.
Instead of a vault of gold coins, he just has
a bunch of basketballh well, you know who knows. And

(01:11:57):
and twenty years from now or something, maybe these things
might be worth quite a bit of money. I don't
I don't know. Maybe they are now. Maybe I was taken,
you know, because he sure made them sound like they were,
you know, worth their weight in gold. Really well, if
he's saying that, then maybe you weren't being swindled, because
if he was really trying to swindle you, he would
be like, uh, you'd have a bit more of a
poker face. I think it was a fair deal. A

(01:12:18):
fair deal was it was was struck in the end.
But honestly, you know, this whole international thing, there's again
I would love to talk about international. Uh. Just they're
just their life from nineteen o seven through the seventies.
Fascinating history that the company. I hope we didn't get
too long about the about the tractors, but I think

(01:12:38):
it was necessary to build a case for just how
long this company has been around, and the the rich
history that they have, and and why they're such an
important name. They made so much stuff, Yeah, lots of stuff.
We didn't even talk about rifles. We talked we talked
about other military aspects. There's all kinds of things we
didn't Yeah, we we didn't talk about the We didn't

(01:12:59):
talk about some of my favorite vehicles, like the travel all,
which is just a great weird looking thing. He tried.
I might have I might have steered us the wrong way.
We had we we had to do it because we
could just spend um. You know that. Ultimately, I have
this weird dream of living in a car, And we
got this great letter from Rudy Smith, a longtime friend

(01:13:22):
of the show, and Rudy rightfully pointed out, you know, Ben,
you might just like the idea of living in a car,
because the RV lifestyle, based on what you're saying, is
not what you want. The reality is far different. So
I recognize that I'm somewhat romanticizing this or being naive
about it, so we don't need to enable uh my,

(01:13:44):
enable my weird dreams of running away and living in
a travel all or unimogue or whatever. But man, they're fascinating.
Please google them. You know, Rudy, I think he's He
mentioned in that note that he and his family often
would would travel in a bus I believe a converted body.
Yeah yeah, and uh and he had a terrible, terrible, terrible, well,

(01:14:05):
a terrible disdain for campgrounds and the type of people
you meet. Well it's something I guess not all not
all so um. Anyways, well, we'll dive a dive into
that maybe in another episode. But Pearson, thank you so
much for sending this in, and I really truly apologize
for it taking so long for us to get back
to it. But man, what a history. This is a
This is another really good one. And it doesn't have

(01:14:25):
you know, like the sordid past like Hall or uh,
you know the William Shakespeare Company. You know the other
fishing company, Yeah, the Dale or anything like that. But
but but it is a fascinating past, and I hope
we've even touched on just some of it. There's way
more there than we were able to get to. Oh
and Irma Harding was brought back in Really, I didn't
know that as a Brandy No, And some I saw

(01:14:48):
the design brought back for some plates or something. That's cool, right,
so maybe like some Franklin mint plates or or something
like that. Yeah, well, we'll check it out. We'll be
on the case. We hope you enjoyed this show. On
the case. I just got it. I didn't even mean
that on the j I case. On the j I Case.
There you, Scott. And we'll continue to provide updates as

(01:15:09):
more information or even just strange historical tidbits about j
I Case and Company and International Harvester come out or
as we discover them during our or weird Internet rabbit homes,
Navistar or whatever they called now right, yeah, whatever their
name is this week, this year, it seems so. In
the meantime, if you want to check out some of

(01:15:30):
the other stuff we referenced in this podcast, go back
to our older catalog. We have a bunch of stuff.
We're closer to a thousand now, Well we're there. We're
seven hundred somethings. I think we're getting close to eight hundred.
Well maybe, I don't know. It seems like it's grown
a little slower at this point because we're only once
a week now, but so it's going a little bit slower.

(01:15:53):
But we're way up there. I mean, it's so many
that you know, we have listeners that right in and
say I've only got three or forty three more to go.
But I'd like to comment on this High Speed Stuff
episode about whatever we should you know, what we should
do some sort of celebratory thing for you ladies and
gentlemen who listened to all of the episodes. So I'll

(01:16:13):
be honest. In our early days, there are a couple
of stinkers there. My fault, but there are a couple
of stings. No, don't take all the blame. It's they're
they're tough to listen to. What we were learning the crap. Well,
here's the tip, all right, So you can listen to
our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, what have you, but iTunes.
As you have said before, Scott will let you listen

(01:16:35):
to the first three hundred or so. Yeah, the most
recent three hundred, most recent three hundred. If you want
to listen to all of them, you can go to
our website Car Stuff Show dot com and that's where
you can see every single episode that we've ever done,
including of course one who are mentioning these tidbits. You
can see some awesome stuff that Scott is posting on Facebook.

(01:16:56):
You can check out the documentary for Vann in which
it do recommend and thanks again Ryan for sending that
on our Twitter Your car stuff hs w at both
of those And if you, like Pierson, have an idea
for an upcoming topic, we may not respond on time,
but we do read everything. Well, I hope we won't
make you wait three years. But but if you do

(01:17:18):
want to contact this, you can even reach a car
stuff at how stuff Work dot com. But more on
this and thousands of other topics is that how stuff
Works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send
an email to podcast and How stuff Works dot com

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