Shakespeare was unsuitable when Romeo rhetorically asks, “What’s in a reputation?”

The reply just isn’t irrelevant — it is cash. In reality, Volkswagen is banking on that truth.

The German automaker is shifting forward with plans to resurrect the Scout identify that it acquired final 12 months when its heavy-truck model merged with Navistar and, within the course of, acquired the rights to the long-dormant identify utilized by Worldwide Harvester for its off-roader from 1960 to 1980. VW reportedly is concentrating on 250,000 annual U.S. Scout gross sales — an SUV and a pickup — when the badge is revived in 2026, based on The Wall Road Journal.

However past the badge — which nonetheless carries some stage of cachet amongst an ageing technology of off-road fanatics, very similar to the also-Indiana-built Avanti does amongst efficiency aficionados — VW’s plan is for a “rugged” SUV and pickup that are, proper now, utterly outdoors its wheelhouse.

I may very well be proved unsuitable, however I am skeptical that tomorrow’s Scout would be the similar kind of true off-road competitor to at present’s Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco that the unique Scout was to the Jeep CJ and Bronco a long time in the past.

In its announcement this week from its house in Wolfsburg, Germany, VW Group mentioned that the approaching Scout pickup and SUV could be “constructed upon a brand new technical platform idea which brings new pickup and [Rugged SUV] credibility past the present Volkswagen Group portfolio.”

Contemplate how towards the grain the above assertion is: VW Group is within the technique of uniting the entire electrical automobile aspirations of its manufacturers from 4 onto only one platform, known as the Scalable Techniques Platform, or SSP. Scout could — or could not, we simply do not know but — match into that future SSP world. If it does, nice; if it does not, why pull each different VW, Audi, Porsche, et al., in a single course, and go away these brand-new issues for a discipline through which you haven’t any expertise, off to play by itself?

I’ve coated VW for 5 years now, and if there’s one factor I’ve realized, it’s that an organization that in some way can nonetheless earn cash with 668,000 staff globally does so by sharing improvement prices as a lot as doable, therefore its platform technique.

To place it bluntly, in VW’s language, “distinctive” is a unclean, profit-sucking phrase. That is why VW turned to Ford when it redesigned the one body-on-frame automobile in its lineup, the Amarok midsize pickup.

If VW’s plan is to construct an entire new firm within the U.S. for Scout, it is going to need assistance — and plenty of it — if these deliberate automobiles are to recapture the spirit of the unique Worldwide Harvester automobiles. VW’s engineering skills up to now have been pointed elsewhere. Its 4Motion all-wheel-drive system can go off-road, nevertheless it’s principally tuned for on-road grip and dealing with — not slamming by mud bogs or climbing rocks with a disconnecting sway bar.

So what’s that every one imply? It leaves me questioning whether or not Scout’s return to the market could also be lots nearer to that of the Chevrolet Blazer than the resurrection of the Bronco.

And no, it in all probability will not “odor as candy” — at the very least not the place it counts to those that nonetheless maintain the unique in excessive regard.

It’s possible you’ll e mail Larry P. Vellequette at [email protected]