(EXPANDED FROM 5/12/2023)
This post has received a burst of new attention, so I thought it would be a good time to expand it. I have argued what may not be very popular with fans of International Harvester: That the truck manufacturer went a long way toward undercutting its future in the light-truck field with the introduction of the redesigned D-Series pickup and Travelall in the 1969.
Perhaps the biggest problem was that International waited too long to redesign its full-sized pickup and wagon models. The previous generation used a body introduced in 1957. By the mid-60s, the truckmaker’s vehicles looked dated.
No wonder that International fell from third to fifth place in light-truck sales as Dodge passed it in 1964 and GMC in 1968. The redesigned 1969 models did not even temporarily change those rankings. For example, GMC sold almost 102,000 units to International’s under 64,000 units. That was well below the roughly 82,000 units International had sold as recently as 1966 (Foster, 2015; p. 132).
To make matters worse, the new design was not advanced enough to allow International to stay competitive for a full production cycle, which turned out to be seven years.
Sticking with flat side glass was a crucial error
The single biggest mistake International made was to continue using flat side glass when each of the Big Three trucks would soon switch to the curved variety. Once they did, International trucks looked old and dumpy.
To make matters worse, chief designer Ted Ornas ditched most of International’s traditional styling cues in favor of a new look that had all of the beauty of a brick.
Whatever else one could say about the previous-generation body, it had an airy and somewhat rounded quality that served to minimize the vehicle’s size. Ornas replaced that with a squared-off shape which looked massive, crude and generic.
The blockiness of the new design can be most easily seen in the Travelall. Its fender tops had an exaggerated pontoon shape that harkened back to the 1950s. This was at a time when the Big Three were moving toward a “fuselage” look that emphasized a continuous side curve from the roof to the rocker panel.
The Travelall looked particularly old hat compared to the Chevrolet Suburban once it was redesigned in 1973.
International had some styling cues worth keeping
What was particularly unfortunate is that the previous-generation design had a few good ideas worth building upon. For example, the side styling had a hint of the fuselage look because its fender-top shoulder was minimal.
In addition, the 1967-70 Chevrolet had already pointed out a way for International to update its unusually horizontal fascia by dropping the top of the fenders above the headlights a few inches below the center of the hood.
The oddest thing of all about the 1969 redesign was how the mid-level character line on the truck bed did not fully line up with the sheetmetal from the B-pillar forward (it switched from a slight indentation to a crease).
And in a final artistic flourish, the character line then zigged upward above the front wheels in a way that made the fascia look even chunkier than it already was.
Foster oversells quality of International’s design
Patrick Foster called the styling “clean, contemporary, and ruggedly handsome” (2015, p. 131). Okay, so it was relatively clean — particularly in the rear, with its unusually smooth contours. Rugged? Okay. But contemporary?
Sort-of in its first three years. However, the ballgame was over once the new fuselage-style trucks hit the market. Dodge completely redesigned its truck line in 1972, followed by Chevrolet/GMC in 1973. Ford gave its trucks a more modest reskinning that year, but it still added curved-side glass and a semi-fuselage shape.
By 1975 the International was really showing its age. In addition to its overly blocky styling, reconfigured body-side trim had an awkward, tacked-on quality.
For example, in the above image you can see how the two-tone paint stopped abruptly near the taillights. And in the second image the trim clashed with the zigs and zags of the middle character line.
Compare that to the Dodge, Ford and Chevrolet pickups shown below. The more contemporary look on the outside was matched with a more car-like interior and extended-cab models — which were the hot new trends in the full-sized truck market.
Big trucks ditched after sales collapse in mid-70s
Marketing for the International tended to emphasize that it was more “truck-like” than other trucks. The sales pitch sort-of worked for awhile. Light-truck sales rose to almost 104,000 units in 1973, although that wasn’t enough to catch GMC’s 167,000 units. However, in 1974 sales nosedived to roughly 74,000 units and continued to fall into the new year (Foster, 2015; p. 146, 148).
International discontinued its big light trucks as of April 1975. Management stated that the reason why was that “its light-duty trucks were far too robust for what it called the ‘second car’ market.” However, Foster argued that “the reality was that International had slipped too far behind its competition to try to catch up now” (Foster, 2015; p. 149).
Foster went on to argue that International “should have made its move during the 1950s or early mid-60s, but management failed to grasp the changes the market was going through” (Foster, 2015; p. 149).
For example, he argued that International made a mistake by not merging in 1963 with the Studebaker Corporation in 1963, which was teetering on the brink of leaving the U.S. auto industry. Even so, it still “had approximately 2,000 automotive dealers, most of them in exactly the places where International needed to be” (Foster, 2015; p. 115).
There’s some logic to that idea because part of why International’s light-truck sales didn’t grow in sync with the expanding market was because it didn’t have an adequate number of dealers in the suburbs. Jeep’s increasingly strong sales in the 1970s could be primarily ascribed to gaining access to better-placed, passenger-car dealers once American Motors bought the truckmaker.
A half-hearted effort made to sell compact trucks
From 1975 onward International’s lineup of light trucks would be based on the compact Scout. Although its body was redesigned in 1972, the Scout was fairly crude for an American truck. Not only did it lack curved side glass, but the windshield was flat and its dashboard was an austere affair that looked like a military vehicle.
The Scout lineup was expanded to include a longer-wheelbase truck and wagon, but they were half-hearted efforts. The truck was merely a wagon with a truck cab plopped on; it didn’t have a separate bed. In addition, the wagon was only offered in a two-door model, so there was no replacement for the four-door Travelall.
Also see ‘Could Studebaker have come out of the 1970s as successful as Jeep?’
The tragedy here is that the Scout platform might have done well in the years ahead if International had given it a more serious update. The 1980s would see booming sales of sport-utility vehicles and trucks that were similarly sized to the Scout. International would instead exit the light-truck market after 1980.
The great irony of International is that even though it supposedly built the truck of trucks, its downfall was at least partly spurred by a series of bad styling decisions. In saying that I am not minimizing the impact of other factors, such as an insufficiently broad dealer network. Nevertheless, styling mattered — and the 1969 redesign turned out to be flawed enough that it represented the beginning of the end for International.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted June 19, 2020 and expanded on April 23, 2021; May 12, 2023; and June 24, 2025. Specifications are from Gunnell (1993).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Foster, Patrick; 2015. International Harvester: The Complete History. Quarto Publishing Group, Minneapolis, MN: pp. 106, 132.
- Gunnell, John; 1993. Standard Catalog of American Light-Duty Trucks, 1896-1986. Second Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Chevrolet (1967); International (1957, 1966, 1967)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Chevrolet (1973); Dodge (1974); Ford (1975); International (1971, 1974, 1975)
My great-grandfather was general manager of I-H’s Richmond, IN plant. My paternal grandmother inherited a sizeable number of shares of preferred Class A stock. I-H was in a downward economic spiral by 1965, and like Stude3baker, could barely afford new tooling for the 1969 facelifts. The banking community was not kind to I-H. By 1979, I-H was bankruptbbbb and its stock worthless.
Back in the day in Wisconsin in the 50s and 60s, IH was regarded as the vehicle of choice for tightfisted small farmers. You see one, you could guarantee the owner had a Flemish name.
In 1969, my dad bought a new 69 F250. For its day it was a nice truck. It had the Custom Cab option and a hang on Frigette air conditioner that worked exceptionally well. It was also unwisely equipped with a 360 instead of a 390 (corrected later!) with no power steering and non power drum brakes. Two tone burnt orange and white it looked contemporary. A neighbor’s family member had a new 69 or 70 International pickup, and even as a grade school age kid I could see that it looked much less contemporary than our Ford did. That Ford stayed in the family until late 1994.
By 1960 IH light duty trucks had peaked in terms of market share and would only slide downhill. IH failed to see trucks as a 2nd vehicle for urban dwellers as their dealerships were typically blended with a tractor implement or heavy duty semi dealer in typically more rural settings. The mid 60s pickups and Travelalls to me had a wonderfully blended mix of round curved fenders and great visibility. The 1969 redesign took elements of the 1st generation Scout along with to some degree future Scout II and replicated it less successfully on their half to ton and half trucks. The 345 V8 along with the 390 V8 were from IH’s medium duty truck line and in the early to mid 60s were virtually identical. Fuel economy was never a strong suit for any company building trucks in that era and IH was poorer than average even then.
We also need to take into context that IH had their foot in multiple divisions including construction equipment, medium/full size trucks, a vast full line range of agriculture line plus solar and other investments in addition to their light duty truck line of half to one ton pickups and the compact Scout. They had factories that built their own bolts and continued to pay high dividends reducing available cash on hand for research and development across all divisions. Their structure between light trucks, heavy trucks, tractors and construction set them up to fight for cash for marketing/research/development among each other. That inefficient setup along with poor management were in part the reason for their downfall not only in their light duty truck line but also their company as a whole by the early 80s when they went bankrupt with a lousy depressed farm market and the ag division was bought by Tennaco, parent company of Case. It was a massive opportunity lost as the Scout line should have been reinvested in for a 3rd generation Scout in the early 80s to continue vs Jeep. John Glancy and Jim Allen’s excellent Encyclopedia on the Scout dives into some of that area.
There are a lot of high quality books on IH from their light duty line, heavy trucks, construction plus obviously their tractor division. For trucks I’d encourage buying Fred W. Crimson’s excellent ‘International Trucks: 100 Years 1907-2007’ published by Victory WWII Publishing Ltd. with over 600 pages it offers a year by year rundown of virtually every light/medium/heavy duty truck the company ever built up to 2007.While it mostly has black and white pictures it should detract from the high quality of research. For a great corporate history check out Barbara Marsh’s ‘A Corporate Tragedy: The Agony of International Harvester Company’ from 1985.