I don't really know from trucks. Aside from financing some old beaters back in the day for some good ol' boys to haul hay down from Nebraska & South Dakota, I don't even know anything about prices and values. Heck, I just learned a couple of weeks ago what a 'glider' is.
But, if I had a ton of excess money, I'd probably buy one of these. If a big rig can be called 'sexy', this one is:
Apparently Volkswagen agrees with me, as they're trying to buy the U.S. truckmaker.
5 comments:
Those International Lone Stars are good looking trucks. Unfortunately, they are still Internationals. The quality just isn't there.
Those old Scouts were cool. If I remember correctly they had a hydraulic throttle at one time.
Dad's had an inline four-banger - don't know if it was the 152 or 196 CID. Wouldn't outrun anything, but in low range it would pull like a mule. (Unlike his next 4WD, a '72 K-5 that he put a Holley 750 on - it'd run like a scalded dog, but not past a gas station. Before I was 16, I used to get to drive that one on FM 2210 between 199 and Barton's Chapel on our way to our friends' place S of Jackistan, W of Hwy 4).
I remember changing and helping change the oil on the Scout a couple of times - didn't have a modern canister filter - my recollection is it was kind of like the old VW screen type (I was about 10 at the time). The front hubs were manual [Warn] lockers, i.e. it was my job to get out and dial them in/out.
I also learned how to grease U-joints and pack wheel bearings on that old Scout.
You mentioned quality issues with the Int'l - is that what plagued the PowerStroke?
My understanding is that Ford now uses a diesel of its own design & manufacture?
International heavy duty trucks were always considered "cheap" compared to Peterbilt, Kenworth, ect. They were more utilitarian in design and quality. You could tell they were primarily a tractor company not an automobile company.
The Eagle series for example was made from riveted aircraft aluminum. Great for corrosion and weight reduction, bad for structural integrity on a truck bouncing down the highway. The exhaust was known to fall off the cab from metal fatigue. The door latches were steel, but the door frame was aluminum. Didn't take long before the latches wore away at the frame and the doors would rattle and leak like crazy. Little things like that earned them a reputation for being cheap.
Navistar has worked hard to change that image, but it's still there.
In 2010 Ford started building their own diesel engine, the 6.7 Liter Powerstroke. The earlier 6.0 and 6.4 Navistar Powerstrokes were plagued with problems, but it was more of a design issue dealing with emissions. The old 7.3 Navistar was a workhorse.
Post a Comment