Reborn Scout Brand Will Start With Electric SUV, Pickup

After virtually 40 years off the marketplace, Scout has an personnel. One. But he’s targeted on bringing the iconic SUV brand name again with a new twist – electric electrical power.

Volkswagen has named Scott Keogh, formerly the head of VW in the U.S., to direct its efforts to resurrect the classic American off-street brand name. Keogh says the company is targeted on two products and solutions and a fast turnaround – it hopes to provide an all-electrical SUV and a comparable pickup truck to the U.S. It will demonstrate prototypes by the stop of 2023.

A Typical Name Comes Back

Scouts have been part of the authentic wave of SUV curiosity in The us. From 1961 to 1980, a firm founded to make tractors created entire body-on-body SUVs and pickups regarded for their tough 4-wheel-travel devices and acceptable rates.

Global Harvester marketed the Scout from 1961 to 1970 and the just-barely-additional-refined Scout II from 1971 to 1980. They have been boxy. They have been torquey. You could get them with a detachable roof and doors. Together with the first Ford Bronco and the primary civilian Jeeps (just before Jeep even called them Wranglers), they pioneered the current market for today’s activity utility automobiles.

But the firm abandoned the car organization in 1980 to focus on commercial trucks and school buses. It has been offered and resold several occasions, most not too long ago landing with the world huge Volkswagen Team in 2016.

VW, at the time, did not buy the business to resurrect the Scout name. They bought it for some property possessing to do with diesel truck engines. But they uncovered the Scout badge discarded in the base of the bag and, not very long ago, understood it could be handy.

A Passion Job

Keogh could be the reason VW took the threat. He instructed an Axios interviewer recently that he arrived across a restored Scout while on holiday vacation with his young ones “and fell in adore.”

It’s a likely story. There is a cottage industry in Scout restomods (aspect restoration, part modification, restomods are basic cars and trucks restored to a glory they in no way had with some unique pieces and some contemporary bits). They are not low-priced, routinely fetching six figures.

But that proves that there is still a marketplace for the common, rugged Scout fashion.

So does the existence of the reborn Ford Bronco. Ford’s resurrection of the classic off-roader has been a profits smash and a crucial hit. Individuals were so excited about the Bronco’s return that Ford bought out of its first two model many years by means of pre-orders on your own.

Up-to-date With Lightning Alternatively of Fire

But VW doesn’t plan a gasoline-driven answer to the Bronco. The new Scouts will be electric. Keogh tells trade publication Automotive News that the brand name strategies two electric powered autos (EVs) — a pickup, and a “rugged” SUV. They’ll be constructed in the U.S., he suggests.

Automotive Information experiences that the two Scouts will journey on “a new platform.” That probably means they will not share the architecture guiding VW’s current EVs these as the ID.4 SUV.

Other startups have experienced some results with electrical off-roaders. Rivian’s R1T pickup, for instance, has won reviewer praise. It’s obtainable with up to four electric powered motors – 1 for every wheel. The means to spin each and every tire independently makes a stunningly nimble rock crawler.

And Scout has one thing Rivian does not, Keogh suggests – a deep-pocketed sponsor.

“Most startups are borrowing money,” he explains. “We want them to be lean, we want to be rapidly, we want to get the best of the marketplace. But of study course, we do have the backing and the scaling effects that come with the [VW] Group.”

However Far more Thoughts than Solutions

If the return of Scout has you thrilled like it does us, you will have to be client. The Wall Street Journal reports that VW hopes to offer 250,000 Scouts yearly, which would be a enormous determination. VW sells about 350,000 automobiles in the U.S. annually under its very own brand name.

But even VW dealers aren’t yet certain if they’ll get Scouts to offer or if the corporation will, Tesla-model, promote vehicles on-line and work its have distribution centers.

Probably the most important question about the new enterprise is cost. Scouts ended up once very affordable motor vehicles. But nostalgia can be pricey. VW is preparing to start an electric powered rebirth of its classic microbus, the ID.Buzz, that in the same way combines EV technologies with classic emotive styling. Its U.S. rate is not recognised nevertheless. But in the U.K., it carries a sticker of about $70,000.