I finally added the new history section - it's an excellent article about the history of International trucks written by International Harvester themselves.  It was published in April of 1961, and I've added photos of trucks to serve as examples for you.

Thanks Susan, for typing it all in for me - it would have taken me forever and a day with two fingers...

We've also made a PDF version of it available for you at the bottom of the page.

In addition, I found some excellent "Harvester World" magazine articles that I've converted to PDF, including a timely article on Haiti featuring R-Series Internationals.  You'll find links to all of these in the right-hand margin of the History page.

I've added quite a few new links to the Links page and have also added some additional information to the facts sections as per your requests.  Thanks for keeping me busy ;-)

In other news, Susan and I are working to bring you some additional International truck history that I came across at the Wisconsin Historical Society directly from the IHC archives.  It was published in 1961 and has a lot of great information.  Look for it soon.

Susan is busy working up new forum badge icons for OldIHC.org and they are looking great.  To give you a taste, the image in the blog post is a blow-up of one of the icons.  She's talented eh?

OK, I'm back.  The leg is starting to feel better and I'm even getting some of my old energy back too.  Nonetheless, the doc says I have to take it easy because of the clots in the lungs or really bad things could happen.  So I have to listen.  Mostly.

I can't work on the garage or Cornelia until spring now, which is a complete bummer.  BUT - my loss could be your gain.  I received a wonderful email this morning from a fellow named Kelan that really got me thinking...

"Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for all of the time that you put into your web page.  It is a nice reference to look at when I need to get specific info for my project.  I have a finished L-110 short box and a new project that I just started.  It is a real find, a 1955 R-140 4x4 with only 6900 miles on it.  I need to get some pics of the restoration for you.  The truck is so clean it amazes me.  Well I just wanted to say thank you from one binder guy to another."

My thinking is this - if some of you folks are actually using this site as a reference, then I could help out by doing some additional research for you and improving the site further. So email me or comment on this post and let me know what area of the site could be improved upon or added to that might help you out with your project(s), and I'll start working on the research to the best of my ability.  If the information is out there, I'll find it and post if for you.

In the meantime, thanks for the boost Kelan, and I'm looking forward to seeing photos of your L-110 and R-140!

Had a bit of a scare with a blood clot in the leg and some in the lungs (good thing Susan talked me into going in) and will likely be offline more often than on for a bit.  Nonetheless, we have a lot to be thankful for and we are looking forward to 2010.  We hope you all are doing well too.  Happy Holidays from John, Susan and Cornelia :-)

I thought B. Mitchell Carlson's "Triple Diamond Treatise" on page 28 of the January/February 2010 edition (Vol 17-No. 6) of Vintage Truck Magazine was very timely.

There seems to be a lot of interest in Line Setting Tickets lately so I've devoted a page to this subject from the article and have added some links as well.  I hope you find it useful.  You'll find the new link in the right margin in the "Truck Facts" section of the site.

In other news, we had a setback at OldIHC.org with a database crash but managed to get the site back up and rolling again.  In fact, at this point it is looking better than ever and there are just a few minor tweaks left to finish.  I even had a little fun yesterday by adding some little Travelall icons to give the forum a more International-specific feel and have a little more fun at the same time :-)

The forums are working nicely and the users are thankfully a forgiving bunch and are coming back.  International owners are a wonderful group of folks.

Thanks to a very kind comment by Bennett Moe, I've added a new links section to the links page for sites of friends.  It's near the bottom of the page under the "Other Sites of Interest" header.  I've added Bennett's site, and the sites of some of the other folks that have visited and commented since "Restoring Cornelia" went live in August.  If  I missed yours or you have a site that is IHC related and you would like to see it added, please let us know :-)

In other news, the "new" OldIHC is rolling along nicely but we decided the new forum was holding us back, so Jim Hadfield, Nick and I decided to try another.  We'll be installing new forum software over the weekend and it looks like it is very powerful.  I think the membership over at OldIHC is going to love it.

Hope you are all having a great turkey day with your loved ones!  I am of course thankful to have married Susan this year and to have purchased Cornelia – it has been a banner year for me and my sons (who I am forever thankful for).

I haven’t been able to work on Cornelia much yet due to my health, but I’m not complaining. Could be a hell of a lot worse.

In other news, we have the OldIHC.org site up and running, and everything looks great and seems to be operating pretty smoothly at this point.  Susan designed the header and footer for Jim, and I tweaked the style sheets for the site and did some grunt work for him.  With another coder by the name of Nick, I'd say we make a pretty good team and I'm pretty proud of the results (I hope Jim Hadfield is too).  You should check the new site out when you get a chance - OldIHC.org.