Decades ago, Scout Motors helped introduce America to the “sport utility vehicle,” a quirky new car that would eventually dominate our roads. The brand went bankrupt in 1980, but now it is back and fully electric.

Scout, now an independent company under the Volkswagen Group, today introduced its first new concept vehicles: the Terra truck and the Traveler SUV. Both vehicles are body-on-frame and sit atop a brand new EV platform unique to Scout. And both could start at less than $60,000 (without incentives) when production begins in 2027.

But beyond the novelty of launching a new EV brand, while sales are still struggling and on the eve of a major election that could determine the future of the auto industry, Scout is trying to sell something that no one has ever done before. really tried: a real throwback that also feels modern and fresh.

“It’s kind of a simple concept, but hard to execute,” says Scout CEO Scott Keogh, defining it as “heritage meets ingenuity.”

Before we get into the story of Scout’s comeback, let’s go over the specs, because there are some real doozies here:

• Body-on-frame chassis, solid rear axle and front and rear mechanical lockers for off-road performance
• Expect towing capacities of more than 7,000 pounds for the Scout Traveler and more than 10,000 pounds for the Scout Terra, both with nearly 2,000 pounds of payload
• Estimated acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds, made possible by an estimated torque of 1,000 Nm via the all-wheel drive
• Vehicle software built on a modern zonal architecture, allowing over-the-air updates and remote diagnostics
• Bi-directional charging and vehicle-to-home capabilities
• One fully electric trim with a range of up to 560 km and an extended range model with more than 800 km of range via a gas-powered range extender

There is a lot of more, including a removable cabana roof, optional front and rear bench seats, and plenty of tactile touch points, like mechanical door handles, handles, and big, chunky buttons and switches.

When I first spoke to Keogh earlier this year, he told me he didn’t want to make another hyper-minimalist EV adorned with touchscreens, glass-like surfaces and haptic buttons. He wanted to make something that was real and mechanical, something that you could grab and feel connected to.

“There is certainly a large segment that wants to bring some of the heritage forward,” he said this week. “They don’t want to be isolated from the car… They want to have real switches. They want to touch and feel mechanically.”

Keogh says the company calls it the “Connection Machine” – a phrase it appears to be trying to trademark. The idea is that when you’re behind the wheel, tearing through gravel or climbing a 100 percent incline, you’re connected to the car through the physical act of driving, but also to your passengers, who crash into each other in the same way. sofa.

That said, there are plenty of design and engineering choices that prove Scout has its sights firmly set on the horizon. The inclusion of a zonal architecture, rather than a domain-style electric setup, will ensure the vehicles have plenty of “wiggle room” for future updates, Keogh said, reducing costs not only on the production side but also for owners by lower costs. maintenance costs.

Zonal architecture is still a relatively niche in the automotive industry. Tesla has been doing it for years, but most automakers use domain architectures, with dozens of electronic control units that manage everything from power windows and airbags to braking.

Rivian recently switched to a zonal system when it launched the next generation versions of its R1 vehicles. And VW (owner of Scout) made heavy use of licensing Rivian’s “zonal hardware design” when it announced its plan to invest $5 billion in the EV company.

Scout had the advantage of starting with a “clean slate,” Keogh told me. “All these things sound kind of small, but setting up your IT architecture without a legacy system – this is huge.”

Something else that caught my attention was the news that the Terra and Traveler would be built on “an all-new and proprietary body-on-frame platform.”

The fact that Scout would develop its own platform, rather than borrowing VW’s modular ‘MEB’ electric vehicle platform, may seem strange to some considering how expensive and labor intensive it is for a brand new company to build its own to develop tailor-made platform. Platform sharing is very common, especially if you are trying to set up a brand new production line. (For example, the Audi RS E-tron GT is built on the same platform as the Porsche Taycan.)

It’s fair to say that VW has been fighting its own battle around electric vehicles. The company’s plug-in models are selling well, but its market share in North America is shrinking. And the software is plagued by bugs and customer complaints.

But Keogh assured me that Scout was not trying to ignore his advantages over some of his rivals. The company wants to maintain its individuality, but will still share some components with the parent company, such as drive units and other modules. Since VW has never competed in the off-road segment before, Scout will put these components together into something that can handle the toughest conditions.

“The last thing we want to do is get our hands on a 100 percent transfer platform with all the modules,” Keogh said, “because then we would be a badge. And Scout won’t work as a badge at all.’

The addition of a gas-powered range extender is sure to raise a few eyebrows as well. At a time when car buyers are flocking to hybrids, Scout certainly could have gone that route and no one would have complained. Instead, the company opted to use a small, gas-powered generator that charges the battery, rather than powering the engine.

The reason for this was twofold. First, electric trucks have traditionally struggled with range when hauling heavy loads or towing large items. Scout aims to convince truck buyers that they can do all the truck things they love without sacrificing range. The other reason is that Keogh firmly believes electric cars are the future, and he wanted a vehicle that put battery power first, while still offering a hint of fossil fuels to reduce range concerns.

“It introduces the buyer to electrification on their American terms,” he said.

The appearance of the Terra and Traveler will be immediately recognizable to many people. It successfully combines designs from Ram, Jeep, Range Rover and Rivian (Scout’s lead designer comes from Stellantis and BMW), while also retaining the same iconic look and feel of the original International Harvester Scouts of the 1960s and 1970s.

Keogh said the goal was to land somewhere between avant-garde and safe. In other words: not too dystopian, like the Tesla Cybertruck, but not overly familiar, like the Ford F-150 Lightning.

“I think it has its own point of view and its own world,” he said. “But if you see little glimpses of Range Rover, little glimpses of Rivian, little glimpses of Ram and a little bit of Scout, then of course I think that’s cool.”

Scout already has a rich history – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a fan – and is now writing its next chapter.