Now THIS is what I call a truck!

"Jim Spanfeller" (awesomeaustinv) 06/07/2020 at 17:10 • Filed to: Truck Yeah

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This International Scout Terra for sale may just be the coolest pickup truck I’ve ever seen. Not just because the modifications seem to be well done and relatively tasteful for once (and I honestly kinda like them), but because this truck lacks a certain feature that (hot take) absolutely ruins the styling of 90% of trucks.

Look at the gap between the cab and the bed on that Chevrolet Apache. Most trucks feature that gap so tha t you can easily remove the bed and put something else there, which makes sense. But w ith the bed on, it comes at the cost of styling. T hey don’t even try to make that gap look better. In this case, it’s just rounded off at the back of the cab so it doesn’t make a smooth transition, and in most other trucks it’s not much better. People complain about big, ugly panel gaps on cars all the time, but in my opinion the gap between truck cabs and truck beds is the biggest, ugliest, most glaring and horrible panel gap in all of automotive history. That Chevy Apache would look absolutely stunning if only the bed and the cab made a smooth transition. But the hideous gap ruins everything.

Except the International Scout Terra is one of the few trucks that doesn’t have this problem ( aside from the Honda Ridgeline of course, but... you know...).

Of course this means you can’t remove the bed to put other things there, but just look at how much better it looks as a pickup truck! So smooth... So elegant... So beautiful. This is one of the few trucks I’ve ever thought looks just as good as a car, and even by car standards it’s darn handsome. If only International still made pickup trucks...

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Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 17:40

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Those are beautiful in person and this is one restomo d I can get behind.

Not all Honda Ridgelines. The ugly one (currently on sale) has an unsightly piece of rubber that imitates a bed gap and is generally terrible.

jminer > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 18:20

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I definitely agree it’s beautiful, but that scout isn’t a pickup it’s more like a Bronco or a CJ8 with a half cab. They were actually sold with full tops.

That being said I would love it and have looked hard for a half cab for my Scout II but they’re very hard to find and extremely expensive when you do.

Kiltedpadre > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 18:44

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I’m a big fan of the International Wagonmaster. It’s basically the Avalanche’s father.

Now I want to know how crazy the Studebaker fleet side trucks drive you? Not only do they have a bed gap but the bed is wider than the cab.

Jim Spanfeller > Kiltedpadre 06/07/2020 at 18:46

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THE SIDE PROFILES DON’T EVEN MATCH UP QUITE RIGHT. I have such mixed feeling about this truck! On the one hand, any Studebaker truck is cool, but the bed on this one goes against everything I stand for!

Kiltedpadre > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 18:56

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There’s actually a reason for it though. Studebaker truck sales had tanked because everyone else was selling fleet side trucks and there’s still had the pontoon style fenders which were considered outdated. They couldn’t afford to design and make stampings for a new bed so they bought stampings that Dodge didn’t need after they changed body styles on their truck. Unfortunately the Studebaker  cab was narrower.

I actually really like the design that everyone at the time considered outdated.

Kiltedpadre > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 19:02

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Attached the wrong picture. You probably noticed that was the wrong generation cab. If you look at the cab you’ll see it looks quite a bit like the Studebaker Lark.

Jim Spanfeller > Kiltedpadre 06/07/2020 at 19:32

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This has me wondering about putting Studebaker Lark bodies on the frames of their truck counterparts...

Kiltedpadre > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 20:02

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Looks like I underestimated Studebaker’s cost cutting ability. Apparently the truck cab is basically a Lark sedan chopped off at the rear doors. That would explain the Dodge bed being wider since the Lark was a compact car.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hemmings.com/stories/article/1962-studebaker-champ/amp

Jim Spanfeller > Kiltedpadre 06/07/2020 at 20:38

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That said, though, considering the bed was designed for a Dodge, it matches up with the Lark styling surprisingly well. Not fantastic, but better than I’d have expected.

Kiltedpadre > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 20:45

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Having a similar side profile, even if it doesn’t line up is a hell of a coincidence.

Just think though, they probably could’ve had one of my all time favorite bed designs: the Dodge Sweptline. It’s a truck  bed with tail fins!

Jim Spanfeller > Kiltedpadre 06/07/2020 at 20:52

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IIRC the bed sides of that truck were actually quarter panels from ‘57 Dodge station wagons. Fun fact: DeSoto made similar S weptline pickup trucks in other markets, but they used Plymouth station wagon quarter panels instead:

Kiltedpadre > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 20:59

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Hmm, I now need that Desoto in my life. I even have the license plate frame to put on it.

You’re right about them being car quarter panels that were fitted to them. They pulled a truck off the line and added the quarter panels by hand along with almost any other options the buyer wanted that may not have typically been available on trucks.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Jim Spanfeller 06/07/2020 at 22:22

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You must love the current Ridgeline and it’s 100% fake cab/bed separation. It’s not needed, it’s their because focus group results said trucks need that line, and the old one didn’t have one, so they had to add it to the new one. 

Jim Spanfeller > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 06/07/2020 at 23:24

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Th ose focus groups are stupid. Then again, truck guys tend to be extremely traditional and resistant to change, so it makes sense they would get hung up on a stupid thing like that. The cab/bed separation line is and always will be ugly. It’s not a feature, it’s a compromise, and unless the bed needs to be able to separate from the cab, the line is unnecessary, ugly, and stupid. I care way too much about this....

shop-teacher > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 06/07/2020 at 23:26

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That kills me. Plus they then put a soft roun dy minivan face on it. The first gen Ridgeline had a much more truck-like nose.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Jim Spanfeller 06/08/2020 at 00:16

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I think only stupid/boring People end up in focus groups. That’s the only explanation on how lame most modern cars are. Design by committee rarely ends up in something interesting. 

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Jim Spanfeller 06/08/2020 at 10:46

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The gap isn’t just there because people like to take beds off - it’s there because chassis/bed flex under a load will otherwise do extremely fucky things to your door function. If the back of the cab is rigid and separate and the front of the bed is rigid and separate, they can each do their own thing, and a high load for’arrds of the rear axle will not cause the door post to get bendy.

However, as to styling, there is something of a problem with “unbroken” profiles as well. Take a normal ute: low profile, ostensibly sedan style “three-box” styling:

Traditional terminology says that there are three “boxes” making up the design, like so:

However, the way the eye is drawn to the shape is with a predominate “long” rectangle that is modified - and this is one reason (other than strength) that utes tend to have buttresses behind the cab:

See? This is a way that the shape becomes harmonious.

The problem with a “gapless” traditional pickup on a short wheelbase relative to cab size is that this happens:

There’s too much cab to treat as an afterthought, and the mind is stuck between treating it as two disharmonious “sharp” rectangles and viewing it as the three similarly-weighted boxes - and if the latter, then the mind expects to see something to support that. The right-angle break with no *completion* is like a repeated suspended chord in music: if you never get resolution, it can be unsettling.

Combine that with people expecting it to be there, and, well...

Ford tried unibody/gapless profiles for the light duty F-series in the early ‘60s, and in addition to doors coming open, they had some other issues. However, what they didn’t have was incoherent styling like the first gen Ridgeline, because they were smart enough to use a very prominent body crease:

That crease totally obliterates the ambiguity of the “box arrangement” and tells you it’s really just a big ute.

Ironically, this means that on the heavy duty models, the bed gap looks much shittier than normal.

Jim Spanfeller > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/08/2020 at 22:42

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Makes sense. However, I do still think it works pretty well with the International. This could be partly because the cab slopes slightly at the back and has a different enough shape, color, and texture that it doesn’t mess up the look of the body below it. Also, I do really like those unibody Ford pickups. Perhaps not the best offroad, but they do look very nice.