It is expected an announcement will be made early this week that Japanese auto company Subaru has purchased the rights to the iconic International Scout brand from Navistar.
The Scout was assembled at the International Harvester facility on New Haven Avenue in Fort Wayne. It is widely credited as having been the first production off-road SUV.
Scouts were assembled in Fort Wayne from 1961 to 1980.
Subaru intends to market a new SUV under the Scout brand name for the North American market. The new vehicle is expected to be produced by Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. at its Lafayette, Indiana plant
Subaru makes a line of highly regarded and rated SUVs and sedans. The new Scout by Subaru is expectedt to get design cues from the boxy design of the legacy International Scout so as to be differentiated from the rest of the Subaru line.
Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Images with rights reserved; may not be used without attribution.
UPDATE: Monday, April 2, 2012 at noon - Some of our readers noted that this was published on April 1st. While the story above is not true, there is a Scout branded production vehicle sold commercially, albeit not in the US. The Octavia Scout is assembled by Czech automaker Skoda.
Comment: I was on the engineering team with international harvester from 1972 through 1982.about 1980 we were working on a prototype Scout.This vehicle was constructed of a new material called composite. This project abruptly was canceled and the six prototype were ordered to be destroyed. I don't know all the details but there is at least one prototype that was saved and is now in a museum in Auburn Indiana. This vehicle was many years ahead of its time. If you would like to have more information about this prototype vehicle please do not hesitate to call me at 260-481-6029. Larry
Posted by: Larry Temenoff | April 02, 2012 at 09:49 AM