The recently revived Scout Motors brand is getting ready to kick off a new line of electric trucks, but it doesn’t want to alienate the classic brand’s fans. To honor its history, it will be sending a vintage Scout Terra to race at the NORRA Mexican 1000 this year.
The race, is one of the classics of off-road racing and is fondly referred to as the happiest race on earth, because of the way it immerses competitors in the community and culture of the Baja Peninsula.
“Off-road racing serves as a proving ground for American automotive die-hards,” said Scout Motors CEO and President Scott Keogh. “The Baja peninsula, in particular, is the spiritual home for high performance off-road racing. As we build Scout Motors, it’s only fitting we start in Baja in classically proven trucks to capture the essence of Scout. From there, the NORRA Mexican 1000 is a chance for us to draw inspiration from Scout racing heritage and learn how to best inject future products with off-road DNA and rugged capability.”
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The truck that goes to the race will be supported by Scout Motors Inc. and will be prepared by the Anything Scout Vintage Racing Team. The vehicle in question is a 1976 Scout Terra that has been “tastefully restored to respect the vehicle’s original ingenuity.”
That means that, unlike Scout’s upcoming pickup and SUV, the vintage racer will be powered by the stock International Harvester 195 cubic-inch (3.2-liter) four-cylinder engine. It will send its power to the wheels via a T-19 close-ratio four-speed manual transmission.
Helping it to handle the Baja Peninsula’s rough terrain, the Scout Terra has been equipped with Dana 44 axles with alloy shafts and 4.56 gears. Big 33 x 10.5 x 15 General Grabber X3 tires will help draw it across the landscape.
The Anything Scout Vintage Racing Team is led by Sean Barber, who also owns Anything Scout, a retro-modding shop that specializes in Scout vehicles. The truck will be competing in the Legends Era 4×4 class.
“When I get behind the wheel of a Scout, I feel a strong emotional connection with the past, the community, and the outdoors,” said Barber. “We started building the Race Terra in late 2022 and quickly turned around a vintage style dirt-trouncing machine. The idea was to keep it simple, keep it strong, and keep it Scout. This is what Scouts are made to do.”
The last time a factory-backed Scout vehicle competed in the NORRA Mexican 1000 was in 1982. At that time, Sherman Balch and James Acker competed in and won the race. This year, the NORRA Mexican 1000 starts in Ensenada on April 30 and will continue until May 4, when it will end in San Jose del Cabo.
Correction, April 13: A previous version of this article mistakenly conflated the NORRA Mexican 1000 and the SCORE Baja 1000.
