This 1975 International Travelette 200 King Ranch pickup was made just about exactly six months before International-Harvestor ceased production of its pickups, being unable to go head-to-head with Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge pickups. This rugged creamsicle (isn’t that an oxymoron?) can be found here on eBay in Schleswig, Iowa. The current bid is just over $6,300 and there is a day and a half left to get your bids in.
It’s really unfortunate that International-Harvester stopped making pickups, I would love to see what an I-H pickup would have evolved into looking like today. Just looking at what an I-H big rig or farm tractor looks like now, compared to a mid-1970s version, a person can only imagine what a new International pickup might look like.
This is not a truck for the squeamish – those afraid to drive a big vehicle, that is. The wheelbase alone is 166-inches on this monster, this is one long truck. There is surface rust on the inside of the full-sized 8-foot-long bed as you would expect, and the seller talks about the body rust. In looking at the photos, you’ll notice that there will be a lot of welding to do on this one. They have provided a few underside photos which are great to see. The body does have quite a few soft areas that will need to be cut out and reworked. Luckily, this isn’t exactly a compound-curve design so you’ll be able to accomplish that task, I’m sure.
The interior is also big, big enough for five hungry ranch hands. I expected to see a bench seat in the front passenger compartment here, buckets seats surprise me a bit. The back seat should have more than enough legroom and headroom for anyone this side of Herman Munster. There will be a fair amount of work to do inside, too, as you can see. This rig has the somewhat rare King Ranch package which included many options that we take for granted today, making this a fairly luxurious truck for its time. The seller has new carpet still in the box that goes with the sale.
The original 392 cubic-inch V8 died when the previous owner, a “Scout builder”, bought it in California and drove it back to Iowa 8 years ago. That owner put in a 345 V8 out of a Scout and it runs like a sewing machine, according to the seller. They say that you can steer it with your knee at 60 mph, but the speedometer doesn’t work so that’s an unusual reference. Would you restore this truck or just maintain it and drive it as it looks now?
Sweet & rare truck.
A former girlfriend’s dad has one of these with dually fenders and wheels plus a camper topper rotting away in the front yard.
Pulled a huge enclosed trailer to drag races all over a few decades ago.
He still has several drag cars slowly becoming one with the earth scattered around the lawn and a barn full of vintage speed parts like multicarb intakes, superchargers, aluminum engine blocks and the like.
Any way very cool and sharp find!
A note to the Big Three……see you don’t have to make a truck 14 damn feet off the ground so that you have to make a folding staircase to get in the bed! It makes no damn sense at all.
Exactly. Have you ever watched Wayne Carini from Chasing Classic Cars getting in or out of the pickups that he drives?
Cool a 4 door truck with a real bed 👌🤔
My dear (short) 65 yr old mother borrowed my factory height 3/4 ton Chevy for a month. She’d open the door and lower a plastic step stool out with a rope and climb down.
She got a lot of thumbs up.and more than a few grins from passersby.
My dad bought a Binder 3/4 ton crew cab, short box back in ‘69. 392/automatic. Lots of potential but the A/C and automatic were chronic troublemakers. The A/C was good for about 15-20 miles before it was blowing warm air, and the transmission was good for maybe 5K miles from rebuilding. That 392 was a puller and passed everything except a gas station. Dad had a lot of Binders during the 50s and had good luck with them. Only two in the 60s and the ‘69 model pretty much swayed him away for good. Nonetheless I find myself looking for another one to fix up and hopefully keep the A/C and transmission doing what they were designed to do. I’ve always liked this color scheme and would keep it. Dad’s truck was ‘Plum Metallic’ which I really liked but I prefer the ‘Creamsicle.’
Hi Geo I have a72 1200 that I’m doing to get rid of. Has a great body needs some love. If interested let me know.superwrench35@yahoo.com
Interesting pickup in decent shape. Too big for my liking, though; and too many doors. Exactly why I don’t care for pickups today; too many doors and the beds are too small. I’m currently restoring my ’95 F150 XLT regular cab with a six foot bed that was in a wreck in 2008 (a red light runner on drugs). It’s costing me a good bit but it’s far cheaper to restore my F150 than to buy a new truck that I wouldn’t like anyway.
The 4 door IHC trucks go for double to triple what the regular cab models do.