Pickups from the Heartland

There were many major players in trucking in the 1930s, but International Harvester was clearly one of the industry’s leading manufacturers. The company made everything from heavy-duty tractors, vocational trucks to three different pickup models in 1936.

By the ‘30s, International Harvester was also one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world – right up there with Ford, General Motors, and U.S. Steel. The company traced its roots back to Cyrus McCormick patented his horse-drawn reaper in 1834. By the turn of the century, realizing the farmers and trucks went together like peas and carrots, IH began building its Auto Wagon line of gasoline-powered motor vehicles as a compliment to its core agricultural business.

The company was wildly successful in the ag and trucking. Too much so, as it turned out. As time went on, the company began to grow, acquiring more rival companies and branching out into new industries and producing products that had – at best – only tenuous connections to IH’s core customer base, the American farmer.

By the 1950s and ‘60s, IH was becoming dangerously bloated and over-extended. The company sold everything from construction equipment, light and heavy-duty trucks, RVs, SUVs, the Jeep-like Scout recreational vehicle, tractors and agricultural equipment to refrigerators and freezers.

Although sales were strong, the company was slowly failing due to stagnating product lines, razor thin profit margins and an inability to focus effectively on a core business – be it construction, trucking or agriculture.

A last-ditch effort to save the company in the early 1980s failed, and by 1984 IH was no more. Today, Navistar International is the sole surviving direct descendent of corporate monster that was IH.