In 2007, when Tim Walz was a freshman congressman, he told a reporter that his dream car was a 1973 Chevrolet Camaro, noting, “I’m kind of a muscle-car guy.” What he was actually driving was a more staid choice: a Dodge minivan.
But a year after that interview with the Hill, the self-professed car guy bought a vehicle that is now making headlines and has come to define the vice presidential candidate’s I’m-from-a-small-town, Minnesota-dad vibe: a 1979 International Harvester Scout II.
The choice impresses people like Brandon Ray, a 48-year-old fellow Scout II owner from Phoenix. As Ray tells it, he’d just gone through a divorce 15 years ago when a “bad-ass” yellow Scout II caught his eye. The SUV bore two decals: One said, “Face your fears,” the other, “Live your dream.” He bought the Scout.
“It did what it said it was gonna do,” Ray said. “I faced my fears and lived some of my dreams in that truck.”