Volkswagen's Supervisory Board has given the go-ahead for a new production plant of the Scout brand in the USA. Scout Motors announced on Friday, following the meeting of the control body, in the vicinity of Columbia in the US state of South Carolina to build a production plant for 2 billion dollars.
Electric pick-ups and next-generation city SUVs are to roll off the assembly line there. More than 4000 jobs are to be created. At full capacity, more than 200,000 vehicles could roll off the assembly line in the factory every year. Series production is expected to start in 2026, according to earlier reports.
The name Scout goes back to a model of the former American manufacturer International Harvester. Its commercial vehicle division was later continued under the name Navistar. The trademark rights to Scout went to Volkswagen when Traton took over the American truck manufacturer in 2020.
The Scout and Travelall models manufactured by International Harvester were precursors to popular SUVs of the big three Detroit automakers such as Ford Bronco and Chevrolet Suburban of General Motors. Harvester stopped building the vehicles in 1980 after the oil price shocks of the mid-seventies, when the company underwent a restructuring.
The main features of the Scout's appearance live on today in vehicles such as Ford's current Bronco and the design of the pickup and SUV line R1 of the electric startup Rivian. For Volkswagen, the reintroduction of the brand is part of its strategy to double its market share in the United States to 10 percent.