(first posted 4/12/2017) Nifticus posted shots of this International Loadstar at the Cohort, and I can’t just walk by. These were once by far the best selling medium truck in the country, and for quite a few years. Its face is as familiar to anyone around in the 60s through the 80s, or longer, as it seems only yesterday that there were some still in front line duty; some undoubtedly still are. An dthen there’s the fact that I drove one of these professionally for a while.
But this one has been re-purposed into a stake-bed pickup, or whatever you want to call it. In any case, it’s shed its working load and is now carrying a very light one in its retirement years.
Strictly speaking, this earlier version of the Loadstar face was even more common, in my memory. I’m not sure when the bulged-out front grille appeared, but I suspect it might have to do with trying to make it look a bit more aggressive as well as more in line with IH styling of the time. For that matter, this wasn’t even the original face for this series of trucks.
It started in 1957, with this proto-Loadstar, which didn’t have an actual name, I’m quite sure, just a number designation. I remember seeing these in the 60s and some into the 70s, but the much more common Loadstar eventually displaced them. haven’t seen on of these in ages.
Why was the Loadstar so popular? Well, International was just a giant in the truck field, and its large volumes made for very competitive prices and its quality was always unassailable. It was just a no-brainer, and the idea that its gasoline engines were designed from scratch to only be truck engines, rather than beefed-up passenger car engines, was a compelling pitch. And yes, the great majority of these used gas engines; the 345 and 392 cu.in. V8s, especially the latter.
I drove a dump truck that was almost this exact length for Baltimore County’s Sanitation Dept. in one of my very many brief “careers”, and it was a great driving truck. The five speed and two speed rear axle made for lots of fun shifting; ten gears to run through to get from a stop up to speed. The cab was abit on the cozy side compared to the new Ford F600 we also had in the little fleet, but with its hard-running 392 and short wheelbase, it was something of a sports car of dump trucks. This one, with an even lighter bed, would be even more so. But then my imagination is undoubtedly running away with me. Who could possibly use the term “sports car” in connection with a Loadstar. Only a frustrated, hard-driving, speed-shifting 19 year-old, undoubtedly.
I would have made that bed MUCH wider. Cover those dualies Son! We don’t need rooster tails of water coming off those tires in the rain!
(But I do like the general concept for re-purposing an old workhorse.
Agree here, would have modified a real dually pickup bed if I could. Also how many of us out there rode school busses with this IH nose? Show of hands!
Hand raised! These and GMC’s made up our school bus fleet around here. I like this truck, great find. I don’t, however, envision Edelbrock producing aluminum heads for the 345/392 anytime soon….
Me too! All our buses were International Chasis / Thomas Body buses, of various years (no two looked exactly alike.)
Here in my neck of woods, besids Thomas body buses there was also some Wayne and Blue Bird buses who used International chasis while the rest was GMC/Chevrolet with some Ford.
You might enjoy the sound of the Allison automatic transmissions with the 345/392.
I like this *much* better than the recent International XT that tried to make a huge pickup out of a commercial International chassis.
My father once borrowed a Loadstar dump truck. I remember it as being a no-compromises truck and still recall the 2 speed axle that allowed it to get along the highway we had to drive from and back to the place it came from. The same “Universal Truck Green” as this one, as I recall.
I grew up in the 70s at CFB Rockcliffe in Ottawa, and Loadstars were popular all purpose trucks for both military and base maintenance use. These and the Dodge D600. The military versions were a similar dark green to this example, with the Armed Forces crest on the doors. Loadstars were also the most common schools buses I rode in public school, along with the Chevrolet B-Series.
These were everywhere, until the IH S-Series started to proliferate.
I also like the re-purpose idea of a classic truck, even more when it is used to hall a classic car or a hot rod. I know nobody likes a trailer queen but sometimes the truck is more interesting than the car on its back.
I hope the owner got this for free. There’s no hitch on the back, so it’s not a tow mule. Unless that stake bed is filled with lead plates, this truck is way over-sprung and will ride like butt.
Replacement tires will cost a lot, and you’ll need to find a truck tire specialist to deal with them. I’d be surprised if it topped 7mpg.
All in all, I can’t see any reason for this to exist vs. a standard 3/4 ton stakebed truck.
So I sure hope it was free.
Your left brain feeling a bit dominant today? 🙂
With that little weight, the tires will go 250,000 miles.
That’d be a punishing ride for sure, I don’t think it would pass the 2CV “Carry a load of eggs over a ploughed field” test.
Nevertheless, full marks for repurposing and sheer audacity. Bravo! I applaud it, even if I don’t want a ride in it.
There’s one down the street at some kind of industrial business with an equally old Ford Louisville, both have been sitting for years.
Here’s my take on this truck. It’s called “Early Morning Haul”.
Very cool shot.
The Loadstar was replaced by the S-Series in 1977, but IH built Loadstars concurrently with their replacements for a year or so. The last couple of years IH sold a ‘bargain’ version of the Loadstar with a simplified option list that carried “Binder’ nameplates on the hood.
I’d totally roll this truck.
Drove one myself for a time when I was 19, dump bed version. Also the two speed rear end, shifting non stop! Thought it was hilarious fun. Had to raise the bed in gas stations to reach the gas tank filler.
Good times.
Paul, is your comment that these were the best selling medium truck based on sales figures, or empirical observation? My childhood memories are dominated by the Ford C Series … perhaps the Fords were more popular in California, or I just noticed them, but other than school busses and some road maintenance dump trucks, I don’t recall the Loadstar as being nearly as common as the COE Fords, though perhaps your comment was specific to conventional vs COE (I know that CC covered the C Series here https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-the-almost-immortal-ford-c-series/ ). Anyway, no criticism intended … just curious.
Empirical observation as well as things I’ve read in the past but cannot source at this time.
The C Series was undoubtedly also a big seller, but when you consider the huge number of school buses along with so many conventional mid-size trucks, including a very high percentage of public fleets, I strongly tend to think the Loadstar had the C Series beat, and by a pretty good margin.
But I’d be glad to be proven wrong.
Eff yeah. Now that’s what a truck looks like. That’s also what a truck sounds like; nothing else sounds like a Loadstar.
Our grain-hauling farm truck had a red cab in the first style and had been owned by a grain elevator that went out of business. Dad got it mostly because the grain box was an excellent unit, with flooring beams installed on edge (2″ up instead of the usual 4″) and good sideboards. The five speed with two speed rear axle was indeed a lot of fun to play with, but also a source of feelings of mastery as you learned which gears to skip for best acceleration with varying loads. Once you learned it you felt like you could drive anything. It was indeed a bouncy thing unloaded, even with the wooden bed, but loaded it was pretty much the same thing, only at a lower frequency/higher amplitude. Bumps under load were a real whoop-ti-doo. Even after years of commercial abuse, however, the controls were heavy but quite honest and direct.
And then there was the time the brakes overheated (dragging brake shoe on the tag axle) on the way home with a full load of corn. That was not so much fun. 25,000 pounds of shelled corn, steel, wood, rubber, glass and teenagers is a lot of mass. Fortunately, the route home came up a good sized hill at the end, so my brother and I were able to slow down to a crawl and glide onto the yard at about one mph. That tag axle brake got quickly unhooked, and the truck was back to work. I can still imagine myself frantically digging my brother out of a pile of shelled corn if we had missed that one turn. Yikes.
P.S., this “pick-up” is fine and in the tradition of stepside trucks. Just needs some fenders and it will be good to go.
The 4 additional slots on each side of the grill means this is a 1750 or 1850, the 10 stud wheels indicate that if it is a 1750 it is at the upper end of the GVW range for that model, or it is just an 1850.
Here is a page with lots of data sheets for Loadstars. http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/ihc/id/36235
Wisconsin historical society is the repository for all sorts of IH documents. They also have copies of the IH magazine and tower talk the employee news letter. Dig around in there and you’ll find support that IH dominated the MD truck segment in many years. You can also find pages with starting serial numbers for given models in a given year. For a fee they will send you a copy of your particular trucks “LST” or Line Set Ticket which tells you the equipment that it left the factory with.
Very interesting. I am looking at an “1800” soon–pics show it has the extra grill vents(side)… i guess it is an 1850? Or is it the engine size that determines if the grill side holes are there?
Really old article and comment.. but as a fyi if anyone comes looking: the extended grill seen on the green truck was originally only seen on the diesel engined trucks, fitted with internationals own DV462 and later 550 v8, (and the very rare in a butterfly hood loadstar DT446) which had the xx50 designation.
But when the later MV404 and 446 gas v8s came out they used them on those too.. presumably the engines were bigger in dimension, or needed more cooling.
You could of course also get loadstars with other diesel engines including Detroit V6s and cat v8s if you asked.. those sometimes had the extended grill, but sometimes they didn’t, and occasionally they used shutter type grills, the shutter grill was also commonly often seen on Australian market loadstars.
Then of course there was the one piece flip front with the chrome grill which was an option from 1972.
Good point, I figured it wouldn’t be just a styling thing especially since this truck has the early style hood badge and I remember seeing plenty with the flatter grille and late hood badges.
Spent about six years driving a short school bus designed for 20 plus students. that looked to me like this carrying a box. I really liked it but it was not geared for Houston. The district bought it from a source in West Va. and it was geared for the mountains not the freeway. IIRC the engine was a 6.9 diesel and I really liked it. I don’t know if it was the same model or not but it sure looked like it.
I absolutely would drive this rig.
I used to ride on a school bus of a 50s or early 60s R190. You could hear that bus a block away from its roaring radiator fan. Later in life I had two International trucks; a 56 L160 flatbed and a 1970 pickup. Both were very reliable and tough as nails.
Any old truck passing into preservation should be supported. Old commercial vehicles are rare in the UK because most were worked to death and then scrapped. It takes dedication to keeping something like this for us all to enjoy.
With those wheels and pushed out grille, there is a good chance that that one is a diesel. A buddy of mine has one factory set up as a two axle tractor. Air brakes and Perkins powered.
I want this because the Brodozers in my neighborhood are getting mighty cocky. Those wimps need to see a real truck like this.
I did have a pic of a R Mack with two fruit bins bolted to the chassis rails to make a ute, I did drive a similar truck for a few weeks carting apple pommice for cattle feed, difficult truck it was old and worn and had airleaks so it would not start, helpfully there was a long airline at the apple press to air it up, Mack used air to run everything so tracing leaks would have been fun.