The International Scout died in the 1980s, but Volkswagen has brought it back, and the result could be a car that is as amazing as the original Scout with none of the downsides. And you can order one now.
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The old International Scout was a fantastic vehicle for its time. It was a genuine, and I think, better off-road vehicle than the far more popular Jeep back in its time. And I know this because I worked on a family farm, and we had both a Scout and a lovely Jeep. However, the vehicle that got the most use was the Scout because it was more reliable, the configuration, as a small pickup truck, was far more helpful than the fabric topped Jeep (particularly in the winter when it was a ton warmer).
Well, Volkswagen Group is bringing the Scout back in similar configurations to the original Scout, and the company has unveiled production-ready concepts for the car, which is expected to be released next summer. On paper, this electric SUV and Small pickup will have one of the most aggressive prices of any EV in its class, and, to my eye, the concepts don’t look bad at all.
Why The Original Scout Failed
The problem with the original Scout trucks was their International Harvester parent. The vehicle was exceptionally well built and surprisingly reliable, particularly when compared to the Ford, GM, and Jeep vehicles of the time, but the dealer network you had to use with International Harvester, which mostly made Farm equipment. This means that as a farm vehicle, you got the same service experience you got with one of their larger industrial pieces of equipment where you’d generally have the repair tech come to you, which made sense if you had several vehicles for them to work on, or you took the vehicle into the International Repair shot conveniently located near heavy farming.
But suppose you were used to the kind of experience you’d get from a Ford, GM, or Jeep dealer. In that case, you likely wouldn’t love the sales or the service experience because it was designed to interface with farms and larger companies, not individual drivers. Waiting rooms were an exception, and these dealers weren’t set up to handle road-going vehicles, having been designed around farming equipment.
It is a testament to the quality of the trucks that they sold the 532K vehicles they sold, but this was a tiny number compared to competing vehicles, and the effort was shut down after operating from 1964 to 1980 (it is kind of amazing, given the volume, that this brand lasted as long as it did, but the trucks were, for those of us who owned them, pretty amazing.
The Volkswagen Scout
They are using Magna International to build this truck. Magna currently builds cars from Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar (they built my I-Pace electric), BMW, Toyota, and Volkswagen (and they used to build Fisker electric trucks). They’ve built around 3.7M vehicles to date for a variety of Automotive OEMs and are considered to be one of the higher-quality contract builders.
Anticipated specifications have the car doing 0-60 in around 3.5 seconds, which is in the performance car range; the vehicle will take tires of up to a whopping 35 inches, making it a potential off-road beast (the fully electric version is expected to be able to clime up to 100% grades), take up 350 KW chargers, and have a two-motor drive system. The trucks should be able to drive in up to 3’ of water, and they are expected to have a unique front sway bar disconnect for extreme off-roading.
The all-electric version should have a decent 350-mile range, but they plan to have a gas range extender version that can take you up to 500 miles in a reverse plug-in hybrid configuration (typical plug-in hybrids have low electrical range and massive gas range).
Wrapping Up:
The Volkswagen Scout is available for preorder today, and, on paper, it represents one of the best EV vehicle bargains this side of China (and given most of us can’t buy Chinese cars, that isn’t a bad thing). One area of concern is that these vehicles won’t be serviced at Volkswagen dealerships but use methods similar to what Tesla initially and Fisker eventually used, where the repair person comes to you. Given how reliable electric motors are and advancements in battery technology, assuming service incidents are infrequent and over-the-air updates, which are anticipated for this car, are common, that shouldn’t be a problem. But it shouldn’t be and isn’t often aligned, so we’ll see about the service experience. It should be far better than the old International Harvester experience.
In the end, this new Scout could be the killer EV for 2025, I hope so, because I miss our old Scout, and it would be wonderful to see that brand come back. While I liked the Caterpillar Pickup Concept, this Scout appears to be far more real, and getting to market is a significant advantage.
Rob Enderle is a technology analyst at Torque News who covers automotive technology and battery development. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.
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