(first posted 7/28/2017) I was making a quick run to Lowes on Wednesday, and what greeted my in the parking lot? A pristine International Travelall. Wow; it looks like new! Are folks restoring these nowadays?
Probably, but this one is mostly original, thanks to only 38,000 miles on it, and having been very well looked after. The owner came along, and told me he just bought it, hence the information on it. And what does one pay for something like this? Nothing, in this case.
Well, it came “free” along with a ’49 Studebaker truck the new owner was really after. Must have been a mighty nice truck to warrant a “free” Travelall as a spiff. I didn’t pry any further, but just took in this boxy baby.
I think he said it was a ’71, but he might have said “73”. Is there a difference? These were made from 1969 through 1975, and the changes were very minimal.
This is a 1210, which denotes the HD version (3/4 ton), which the full-floating rear axle confirms as well as the big wheels and tires. And it’s got an “Eight”. Most likely the big 392, although if it is a ’73, it could be the AMC 401, which IH bought in ’72 and ’73 as they couldn’t make their own 392 in enough quantities for those two years.
So is this a filler cap for an auxiliary fuel tank on the front fender? Hmm.
This is one clean truck inside; it’s a time warp to another era, when SUVs were anything bu luxurious and plush inside. This truck has the world’s biggest folding front arm rest, as in one third of the seat back. And it’s got an automatic; a Borg-Warner 3 speed. And an under-dash tach. It appears that this Travelall was bought to be a trailer-hauler, as so many were back in the day. But it looks like that must have ended or petered out a bit early, although 38k miles are not bad,, if it was all or mostly recreational.
I’d venture to guess it was an elderly couple, and no one hardly ever rode in the back seat. Looks showroom fresh.
The cargo area shows a wee bit of wear and tear, but it’s still mighty pristine.
I covered the previous generation of Travelall and a history of the genre here. And one of our earliest COALs involves a 4×4 version of one of these. I’m out of time on this one, although it deserves better.
I’ll leave it to our CC International experts to fill us in on whatever I left out.
What a great find and it’s in spectacular shape. It’s a good thing that it’s a 3/4 ton, too. If memory serves, the 1/2 ton versions of the pickups and Travelalls developed a reputation for weak and whippy frames that were not an issue on the heavier duty models.
Saw this interesting trio by the side of the road last August…
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No the 1/2 ton versions were not weak and whippy frames. Particularly the 10×0 models with the IFS which is a massive boxed unit. On Travelalls their were two frames, the aformentioned IFS unit and the weaker unit used in all other Travelalls, 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton, 2wd or 4wd. Now in the pickups the section modulus, frame height and thickness did vary between the 1/2, 3/4 and 1 ton versions depending on overall wheelbase and there was some overlap there too. For example there was a 1/2 ton version of the Travelette that you have pictured and it used the same frame as the 3/4 and 1 ton versions.
I seem to remember some early 70’s 1110 pickups that had IFS, full boxed frames, and underslung rear axles. A friend of mine had a 4X2 1110 with an I-beam front axle, C-channel frame, and leaf springs over the top of the rear axle. Did the IFS option include the boxed frame and different rear suspension?
No the 1000 and 1010 were the IFS models pre 73, The 1100 and 1110 were the ones with the I beam or driven front axle. Yes the 10×0 were the ones with the boxed frame and different rear suspension. In 74 and 75 all non chassis cabs got and entirely new IFS and that was the only way the 2wd models were built.
Thanks, that clears it up. My friend’s truck was definitely an 1110 (4X2) and did have an I beam axle.
I’m in love! When I met my best friend Dan in the fall of 1972, we were starting 7th grade and his parents had one of these. Theirs was the next darker shade of green with a pebble-finish black roof and the woodgrain strip on the sides, so was probably the next higher trim level than this one. Good Fort Wayne boy that I am, that Travelall forever ruined the Suburban for me, which I have always viewed as a pale imitation. 🙂
This was the ultimate station wagon in my eyes with gobs and gobs of room for everyone. The problem turned out to be a lack of extra seats. When I got invited along on a weekend trip someone had to sit in the front middle and that maxed things out given their family of five. They replaced it with a 73 Dodge Royal Sportsman Maxivan, which solved that problem.
This is definitely a 71, as they went to a different grille design in 72, variations of which stayed through the end. Crap, now I’m going to spend the rest of my morning hearing the metallic slam of those doors and that 392 starting up.
Howard’s Travelall was just like this one, only in dark olive green, right down to those wheelcovers that were variations of those on the 64 Studebakers.
His other car was a black 72 Chrysler Newport 2 door. Was it possible to have two more actively anti-cool cars in 1972? Which made them cool to me (then and now).
That Chrysler COULD have been a Checker Marathon ~
Group of Chevy GMC-Truck executives& designers around a table circa 1971:
What about the ’73 Suburban?
Oh we’ve got a honey on the drawing board!
Just as big?
Yep!
Just as many doors?
Yep!
Tows just as much?
Yep!
Can you get 4WD?
Of course!
Engines as big?
Bigger!
Rusts just as fast?
Faster!
Sign off on it!
So true. Those new-for-’73 GM trucks were leaps and bounds more refined and (subjectively) more attractively styled than the generation before them, but they sure must have employed the rustproofing technique previously reserved for the Vega, because rust they did, and quickly.
Even here in no-salt-on-roads-in-winter California, those new ’73’s rusted terribly. Water-based paint? Personally, I prefer the styling on the previous generation, but the ’73-on interior is more “car like”. Don’t care for it.
This looks to be a mid-level trim, with chrome bumpers and moldings outside and cloth (woven vinyl?) seat inserts, carpeting and padded door panels instead of bare painted metal on the inside (there’s plenty of that left, though); but no woodgrain inside or out.
On IH’s the outside and inside trim packages were ordered separately. The woodgrain or two tone were separate line items from the Deluxe and Custom Exterior Packages. This does have the cloth and vinyl seats which means that it does have at least the mid range Deluxe interior package. Because so many options were ala carte you could order the Deluxe interior trim and add the bits that came with the Custom trim level as a single package.
Wow!! What a find. Though one of the two or three people I knew who owned a Travelall (previous gen, in the late ’70’s) called his a “Troubleall”.
Usually called a “Rattleall”.
What a beautiful survivor, down to the factory color matched cap on the auxilary fuel tank filler in the front fender.
As JPC mentioned you are correct that this is a 71 which is the only year that wore that grille. Being a 71 it meant the last year that the auto trans was sourced from BW, 72 brought the venerable 727 to the line up across all Light Line IH products.
No IH didn’t just make minimal changes. In 1974 they cut the floor pan around the rockers, rolled out the chassis and came in with a dramatically different, completely new chassis. The new frame was wider, at least in non chassis cab versions, with a completely new coil spring IFS on all 2wds as well as a new rear suspension design that helped with the lower overall height on the 2wd vehicles vs the old straight axle versions but about on par with the torsion bar IFS vehicles. A new wider track was also part of the new suspension and frame lay out. The other big change was that the engine was set back a couple of inches in part done to be able to accept the in development MV series of engines the MV404 and MV446 the cousin to the 6.9. Unfortunately it wasn’t ready for production at model year launch and the first energy crisis meant that IH didn’t bother to add it to the Light Line once it was rolling off the line.
I had no idea these got so extensively revised in 1974. I will always wonder how many IH could have sold had they kept this around through at least 1978. Sales of the big stuff got strong in 1976-77 particularly. Of course, their dealer network wasn’t really optimal for the retail trade. I was hugely disappointed when I learned that these were gone after the 1975 models. They had seemed to be selling better than ever up to that time, but then I was living in Fort Wayne where there were a ton of IH employees who could buy them at discount.
The thing it that the 6.9 diesel and MV were designed to be interchangeable with the same bellhousing pattern and the same motor mount boss locations relative to said bellhousing and the same general overall dimensions, they even shared water pumps and rear main seal housings. So had IH hung on a little longer the 6.9 would have dropped in with essentially zero development cost.
IH could have beat everyone to the 70’s light duty diesel craze and told Ford no 6.9 for you. Imagine how that would have changed the pickup landscape of today if there never was a Powerstroke. Yeah some people which there never was a Powerstroke in certain years that got saddled with the 6.0 and 6.4.
I always like Travelalls, though they weren’t ever all that common. This one is a beut. That gas cap on the right front quarter got me to thinking. I know I had seen that cap location before, maybe on Binder pickups. Wasn’t the gas cap on the IH pickups from that era weirdly located on the right (passenger side), and lower down on the B-pillar than normally seen on American trucks? I can imagine how most pickup drivers found that kind of annoying (then again, full-service was still pretty common). Was the tank on the IH pickups behind the front seat, as in every other old pickup or under the cab?
IH moved the tank under the cab in the 60’s. Yes they put the fill in the fender on some pickups. IH was all over the place with them.
Reg cab pickup single tank and the filler high on the R cab corner. If it had the aux tank the filler was in the driver’s side fender.
Travelettes on the other hand had their main tank filler in the R front fender as pictured here. The tank location, mounting system and even the basic tank was essentially the same on all passenger side they just poked a hole in a different location depending on whether it filled from the front or the rear.
On Travelalls the base tank is in the driver’s side rear body, under that removable panel you can see in the interior shot and was filled under a door in the quarter panel. If you ordered the auxilary tank it was the one you see pictured here in the front fender. Add the fact that there were multiple sizes of the under floor tanks and that those vehicles that had seats for 4 or more passengers or were under 6000 gvw had to meet EVAP regulations while the regular cab pickups 3/4 ton and up didn’t means that there are literally over a dozen different tanks for the 69-73 trucks, and then for the new frame in 74 more different under floor tanks though the rear tank in the Travelall remained the same.
I have thought about adding a 3rd tank to a Travelall using the pickup aux tank or just moving it to that side and giving up the other one so that both are on the same side of the vehicle rather than RF and LR which is a pain to fill both tanks.
The interesting thing about the Travelall set up is the fact that the rear tank sits much higher than the front. That means when the O-ring fails in the valve the rear tank will drain into the front. If you fill both and let it sit eventually the gas will come out of the front filler as many who recently picked up one that has been sitting have found out over the years. The plus side is that you can take a cover off the side and replace the o-rings. Of course you’ll need to make a new gasket for the cover.
Wow! Great info. Under the cab, between the rails, seems safer than inside the cab, where you heard the gas sloshing around. Also similar to my Honda Fit, which has the tank under the floor.
Who said anything about the tank being between the rails, they are side saddle like the infamous GM trucks that co-opted many of the styling cues from these trucks. If got a regular cab you still had the filler tube and hoses running through the cab and of course the Travelall is inside too where yes you can hear the fuel sloshing around.
Wow…that thing is just gorgeous! The condition is immaculate. Havent seen an unrestored IH in anywhere near that good a shape since the mid 80s. Love that color too!
What a time capsule. A very nice representative.
On another note, either those aren’t as wide as I assumed, or your Lowes has luxuriously wide parking spaces. In the third photo I would have sworn he was parked over the line, but we can see in the passenger side photo he is not. But there is some jerk in a white van taking up two spots behind him 😉
Ooer, that is a honey of a Travelall in a perfect colour! I really like the taillamps; they remind me of the ’71-’73 Cadillac tails. Not too keen on the Borg-Warner (BW35?) transmission, though obviously they were at least adequate; I like the ’72+ Torqueflite better.
Just look at that greenhouse! Those slender pillars!
A buddy of mine in college had one of these in his family, he borrowed it once, mid 1980s. It was huge! It struck me as a more ‘truckish’ Suburban
And with mostly flat and upright glass, the solar gain isn’t bad at all, especially wiht the tinted glass like mine, and you can actually see out of it.
I think of these Travelalls and old Suburbans as “see-through SUVs”. Not too tall by today’s standards, no dark-tinted windows and no headrests mean the driver behind them can see all the way though to the traffic ahead.
I have no use for one of these…but I like it…a lot! If ever want a car that gets single digit mpg, I will pick one of these up!
I’d have mine with the four speed manual though.
You know you could get a 5sp manual if you wanted. It was a MD truck transmission so not exactly a slick shifting box. You could have in in 5th OD which gave you a weird shift pattern since it was built on a box designed for 5th direct. So direct 4th stayed in the same place as direct 5th just coupling the input to the output, and OD was where 4th had been. So 3 to 4 was a dog leg shift. Like the 4sp you had the choice of a close or wide ratio spread again owing to its MD truck roots where it may or may not be paired with a 2sp rear end.
I wish there were a Light Line Dude to have debates with Scoutdude.
I want! Perfect 1971 color too!
Why did they ever stop making these? While never overly popular, they still seemed to sell in decent numbers in the early ’70’s and owners loved them. Perfectly functional in every respect and the 4 WD versions were far more civilized than the competition. My guess is that the energy crises of the time made buyers leery of big, thirsty vehicles like this, no matter how well built. GM could ride out a Suburban slump by selling its many other vehicles. International couldn’t.
The energy crisis played a big role from both ends.
The bottom fell out of sales in 1974 thanks to the energy crisis. The great Ernie Bisio told me the tale of the 2 Travelalls he had ordered set up for max tow capacity when the order sheets for the 74’s went out in Summer 73. He sat on them for quite some time and ended up selling both for less than 50% of sticker. He said his accountant (wife) threw a fit.
Another hit came from the fact that they were built in the same factory as the Loadstar. The Loadstar was on a roll and the reason for the AMC 401 finding its way into the Light Line was to free up capacity needed for the Loadstar. Then when the energy crisis hit you could always order your Loadstar with the 304 or 345 and make them relatively efficient compared to many fleet’s current trucks.
New emissions regulation also weighed in as IH didn’t have much money for development. The way they meet the new more strict 1975 emissions standards was to discontinue all “standard” half tons and only offer “heavy” half tons, including Scouts with a GVW of over 6,000 lbs.
Faced with few orders for the 75s thanks to dealers still sitting on so many 74s, the need for Loadstar capacity, and that next step in emissions regulations looming, it was probably an easy decision to pull the plug, despite the fact that they had just invested so much money for the new chassis.
Excellent analysis Dude and makes perfect sense. Timing can be so unfair.
My BIL had one very similar to the one pictured, until his soon to be ex-wife opened the hood and ripped out all the wiring harnesses she could find, from under the hood, and under the dash. He ended up scrapping it.
/We tried to warn him about her./
Wow what a time capsule its hardly been driven.
Finding this in a regular store parking lot still blows me away, as a CC car spotter myself. Talk about the stars aligning!
The VW group has control over the Scout name via its purchase of Navastar via Trenton. Anticipated EV Scout in already in development.
https://www.scoutmotors.com
If the new Scout is successful, don’t be surprised if the Travellall name makes a comeback.