Dropped the kid off at the nursery, and then continued with the wife on to a near bus station. The road was taking us through a building site. Imagine my surprise when I saw this hard-at-work Internash.
I know it was hard-at-work because I could see smoke coming off the top of its exhaust- maybe you’ll spot this in the video:
Soundtrack is of the wife coughing.
This has to be a late Eighties truck. judging from the cabin shape, this is before the mid-life redesign International have done to the S2600. If my memory serves, International trucks were not available on the Israeli market until the Eighties. The Scout was around (as was the pickup) during the Seventies, but not the big trucks.
Good to see this truck out and at work. I guess the other alternative for trucks of its kind in Israel is the crusher.
I spent a lot of time driving S Series Internationals back in the 90’s. They were tough trucks but with the DT 466 you weren’t going to win any races. The fuse boxes were located up behind the dash on the drivers side and weren’t easy to get at. Worse yet was that if the windsheild leaked, and it seemed like they all did, the water would drip on the fuse box creating problems. Quite a tough truck though.
I owned a ’79 S2600 for several years. It was robust, durable and very straightforward. The interior was taxicab-grade 70’s vinyl and plastic, but al least the interior no longer had bare steel panels.
It had been a highway tractor, and was powered by a 400 hp Cummins 855 and an 18 spd Eaton Roadranger. The truck was converted to a dump body so the engine was definitely overpowered for the task. But it was quite the hotrod, the excess power made for an easier drive under load.
That basic S series cab was around from ’77 until at least ’02 in some applications. Very had to determine the year from a distance, the older design hood with round headlights and vertical bars was used on certain models throughout production.
Agreed, very hard to tell its age. Had I had a more frontal view I could see its license plate, and then have an educated guess.
This could in fact a truck first used by US contractors who won the tender to build IAF airbases (replacing those ceded after the withdrawal from the Sinai desert) after Israel made the peace accords with Egypt. After work was completed, the US firm saw no point in shipping the equipment back home and it was auctioned in Israel. It probably was at one time or another a semi trailer tractor – the drilling equipment I’m fairly certain is not original and was first mounted on an older chassis. This typically happens in Israel to older trucks once using them as everyday road haulage vehicles becomes uneconomical. I’m guessing the equipment dates back to the 50s and probably was originally mounted on an FWD (which has long been made into something else). Below is a picture of another one when it was fairly new, somewhere in Israel.
Oh: there is an Israeli dealer for International (as well as Tatra) trucks – see below – but so far it seems to be happy with IDF contracts and has made very few attempts (if at all) to try and penetrate the civilian market. Some of this may be explained by the fact that the only COE models (you must have COE models in Israel if you want to sell more than a few trucks) made by IH do not have Israeli type approval, but that does not explain it all, and if I were Navistar I would ask for explanations or else. With that dealer, I would not expect a great future for Tatra trucks in Israel either.
(http://www.zoko.co.il/%D7%AA%D7%97%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94)
That image you uploaded is flipped, i.e. mirrored. Once I used Photoshop magic to flip it back, enhance the colors and sharpen it a bit, you can just about see its plate ends with 59, so it’s a 1989 truck:
@ Yoahai: the most beautiful hood in Ganei Tiqva? Lol.
Edited to add: for those few CC readers who do not understand Hebrew, that’s what the sign is saying as the car is driving away in the last few seconds, and Ganei Tiqva is not exactly Monaco.
Correction to the translation: that’s “the most beautiful neighborhood in Ganei Tikva”. Well, they’re right, since it’s a new neighborhood from the ground-up and absolutely no problem topping whatever is built there right now…
Kidding aside, it’s actually not a bad place to live in- provided you know the right neighborhoods, of course. Our original hometown has become much worse by now, as you know.
But we digress.
I thought these looked very crude when they came out, with their perfectly flat windshield and Tonka-toy styling. Like something from the Eastern Bloc. But I’ve come to appreciate them a bit more with time, but it was a come-down from all of the many interesting International cabs from the past.