Re: Torque Monsters

[Kim Sol <kimsol@domain.elided>]

My Dad and I stopped by the Ford Dealer, sometime in the mid '60's, with our '64
IHC 4x4 1100C just to chat, and the Ford man looked at out at that International
and remarked, "boy, those are tough trucks ... if you put bigger tires on it, that
would be a tractor." Prior to that moment, my Dad hadn't been a real IH truck fan;
we always had IH farm equipment, but he didn't know the truck line very well.
Thought the engines were too "cold blooded" for Montana winters. His favorite had
been a '54 Studebaker, and when that wore out, found a little '47 Ford with a
flathead V-8. He really liked that tough little pickup. That Ford V-8 was about as
big as a Volkswagon engine; not at all like the later Ford V-8s, but it always
started and got great gas mileage. The '64 IH was sooo big (longbox, 131"
wheelbase) by comparison, he couldn't turn around in the corrals with it, and that
big International V-8 SUCKED gas, by comparison with that little Ford. And, he
thought four wheel drive was just a new, expensive way to get really stuck, a lot
further along in the mud than if you had two wheel drive. "If you are going to get
stuck, you shouldn't go there," he used to tell me with a certain infallible
logic, leavened with a heavy Dutch accent. So, when the Ford dealer remarked on
the pulling power of those International pickups, my Dad began developing a much
higher regard for it after that. Still have it, in storage, after all these years,
partly in regard for that day and many other memories. Happy Thanksgiving. Kim
Sol, 1980 Scout II, 4" life, AT, auto hubs, "copper."