Mark Your Calendars: New Scout Debuts October 24
Here comes the newest off-road contender. In a Facebook post earlier this week, Scout Motors announced the reveal date for its first vehicle: October 24.
It’s hard to glean much from the image, but that hanging compass looks delightfully retro. (We’d bet that retro themes will carry on throughout this vehicle; nostalgia around a revised nameplate is precious—so long as the engineers and designers don’t abuse it.)
Along with the announcement image, the Scout Motors Facebook page had this to say:
“The time is right. On October 24, 2024 — 44 years to the week after the last Scout II™ rolled off the line — we’ll officially reveal the next generation of Scout vehicles to the world.
To the makers, doers and everyday explorers, and our loyal Scout community, we look forward to showing you our new SUV and truck concepts we’ve been hard at work crafting behind the scenes.”
Let’s quickly recap: Scout Motors is now under the Volkswagen umbrella, following the latter’s purchase of Navistar International in 2021. We’re expecting a truck and an SUV from Scout, both to be built at a $2 billion facility in Blythewood, South Carolina.
A while back, we even got the distinct pleasure of joining a convoy of vintage scouts heading from Fort Wayne, Indiana, down to the nameplate’s future home. You can read the three-part series here, here, and here.
The new Scouts will reportedly be all-electric. Given that an automaker walking back its ambitious electrification goals seems to be a weekly occurrence these days, we’re curious whether the chassis could accommodate a hybrid powertrain. That said, with production slated to begin in 2026, the Scout Motors team is likely deep into the development cycle already, and that ship may have sailed by now.
We’ve just a few short weeks to wait until more details arrive. We’ll be at the live reveal, so stay tuned.
I wonder if they will be a money pit like most Audi and VW products after 100K miles
I don’t wonder about them at all.
It is likely a given, especially if it goes EV only. Batteries are not cheap!
I stopped reading when I came to “all electric”.
They look like slightly restyled Rivian Models. And as VW recently signed an agreement with that automaker it makes me wonder if they are just a rebodied Rivian?
I hope I don’t sleep through that! Best I set my alarm.
Off the subject is it Girl Scout or Girl Guide these days?
My step-dad, trucker and grain-elevator operator, bought one of the first I-H Scouts in CA, but it took an extra month to deliver in N CA because he’d ordered extra-wide rims from the Wheel Center in LA, which mounted 89.50×14″ M&S cleat tires (also cross-cut, no less) to use in the fields. I loved it (age 17) except it was badly underpowered! We could all see that like the Pontiac Tempest ‘slant-4’ it was basically half their 5-L V-8, and longed to have that under the flat hood instead! Unlike the Poncho, it wasn’t very eager for athletic performance.
But, I liked the ‘fabricated’ look; so simple and easy to repair — and modify! If I weren’t 79, and not looking for a new project (still too many already!) I’d go hunt down a SBC-powered early Scouty at a local dismantlers; too bad I’d have to get him to move a dozen early Corvairs to snake it out! Nice to see the familiar logo again, but I don’t expect to have Reddy Kilowatt under my hood — ever. Wick
The original Bronco was a direct knock off of the Scout adding an engine that could actually power it. In many ways the Scout set the look for all to come. VW obviously thought the retro look was worth the cost of the name or they wouldn’t have bought it. As far as Rivian, if anything they tried to resemble a Scout II from the get go in my opinion. Just look at their paint options. The pastel seventies are back!
Another $100,000 toy for the rich kids. I really hate the fact that new car reveals are meaningless nowadays.How long has it been since anything new has been semi-affordable? Just wondering. Maybe the Maverick until the moment the wheelers and dealers got involved?
Having spent most of my childhood in C and D Series Travelalls, IH and Scout are close to my heart…more so now as my daughter looks to replace her modded Audi Q5 with a proper off-roader.
Not knowing about VW’s purchase, when I read that opening line from the press release (“To the makers, doers and everyday explorers…”), I nearly burst out laughing and thought to myself what self-respecting Indie manufacturer would use such drivel.
Of course the next sentence introduced my to the VW purchase and then it all made sense.
While it would be a wonderful connection between my adolescence and my family’s current patronage of Audi products, it remains to be seen just how serious an off-roader the new Scout will be.
If the top doesn’t come off it’s going to be just like any other disappointing SUV like the Chevy Blazer how sad I hope VW realizes that the scout is popular by demand because of the ability to take the top off also that’s why the new bronco is so popular