Volkswagen’s hype machine for the new Scout is upping its output, its latest cheer for the battery-electric off-roaders a video called “Back to Work.” The 2:09 clip could be considered a video analogue to the Little Red House, the anonymous brick ranch-style home at the Blythewood, South Carolina site of Scout’s future assembly plant. Both are about history, roots, deep values expressed with plainness and simplicity. And for as cliché and perhaps gimmicky as the house and the video are, in being turned into touchpoints for authenticity, what they represent is true and genuine.
As a sign of hype to come, the video includes a line about Scout being “The first SUV, before Bronco, before Blazer, before anybody.” We had a paragraph here giving Scout credit for the claim while excluding overseas offerings like the Land Rover Series I Station Wagon, Mitsubishi CJ3 — a knockdown Jeep kit for the Japanese market, and Nissan Patrol sold in the U.S. for a few years starting in 1962. Then a retired editor of the SAE’s Automotive Engineering magazine wrote in to correct us with, “Willys-Overland’s Jeep Station Wagon debuted in 1946 and was used by many owners for fishing, hunting and skiing trips among other sporting outdoor uses. Arguably the first SUV. The original Land Rover launched in ’48 and quickly found similar audiences. Toyota Land Cruiser first sold in US in 1958, a year after the first 4×4 Chevy Suburban entered production. Scout was a follower in that segment.” Making Scout’s claim true only as applies to the Bronco and Blazer, its modern competition.
Not that battles over semantics and nostalgia matter now. As we said in our piece on the Little Red House, what matters is what Scout brings to market, and all this talk only makes us more keen to see it. If you’re looking for more on Scout’s good old days, though, check out this video from Bart’s Car Stories called “The Actual First SUV.” Yeah, he gives the nod to Scout, too, in layout out a neat and concise overview of International Harvester’s quest to create a “Small 4×4 Unit.” If IH had been as good as marketing as it was at tractors, trucks, and engines, a huge portion of U.S. drivers might today be driving the S4U instead of an SUV.
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