The International Harvester Company was a behemoth, multi-faceted conglomerate with divisions covering commercial trucks and busses, agricultural equipment, road vehicles, and even a brief dabble in military equipment.

While International Harvester never enjoyed the same mass-appeal and production scale as the Big 3, it was a formidable producer of wagons and light trucks dating back to 1907, a legacy that continued all the way until 1980 when International Harvester, against drastic financial pressure and a costly United Auto Workers strike, officially ceased production on road vehicles.

Through the early 1980s, International Harvester would continue selling off its independent divisions (and even its own name!) until all that was left was the truck and engine division, which rebranded as Navistar.

But before the sad ending, International Harvester was able to bestow upon us the magnificent Scout - a light-duty SUV that, like its chief rival, Jeep, had been built to appeal to a buyer that valued practicality, utility, simplicity, and utility.

The original International Harvester Scout - the Scout 80 - was designed by Ted Ornas. Ornas was a 1939 graduate of Cleveland Institute of Art and a member of the inaugural General Motors Styling Training Class. After GM, Ornas bounced around gigs in industrial design and eventually founded his own firm with his partner Dwight La Barre, creatively called Ornas-La Barre. It was at Ornas-La Barre that Ted would take on the International Harvester account for project work, eventually folding his partnership with La Barre and accepting employment with International Harvester full time.

By the late 1950s, International Harvester was dreaming up an expansion to its light duty truck line with an all-new rig that can lay claim as the original SUV: the Scout 80. Ornas provided his vision on the aesthetic of the vehicle, while Ralph Buzard, head of IH's truck division, provided a vision on the use-case for the yet-unknown segment the Scout would father.

The Scout 80 was introduced in 1960, with the replacement - the Scout 800 - introduced in 1965. The Scout II was finally released for the 1971 model year. It featured new styling, bigger engines, and a series of special packages and trims. It was offered in 2WD or 4WD. Production occurred at IH's Fort Wayne, IN facility, which employed almost 10,000 at its height.