Date: February 4th 2000
Title: '77 SSII - The Hooper Truck
Story: Some folks have heard of my Hooper Truck. I am the second owner of this vehicle, my father was the first. Back in 1978, he was looking for a strong truck that he could rely on to take his family out camping and playing. After much research, he settled on the Scout SSII. Since he was in Southern California, the idea of being able to quickly and easily remove the top appealed to him. He did not have much choice in colors, since there was only one SSII in the South Bay at that time. The dealer at the lot told him a story about the truck on the lot being used by Warner Brother's Studio to film the movie Hooper, hence the 380 miles on the odometer. Hooper was filmed in 1977 but had yet to hit the theaters at the time my folks were shopping for a truck. They had no idea what Hooper was about and were quite skeptical of the dealers claim. Still, it was interesting and the truck was everything they wanted. My parents had 4 kids at the time, and I was all of 11 years old at the time. I remember clearly climbing over the back seat into the cargo area. My sister and two brothers sat in the rear bench. The bright orange interior was almost blinding and the interior smelled of new tire because the spare was mounted in the bed. My parents went ahead and bought the truck from Hansen's Motors in Hawthorne California for $400 cash down and a $1391 trade in value for a 1970 Cheverolet Staion Wagon. Total price for the truck was $8000 with $480 in sales tax. After tax and license, they ended up making payments of $186.98 for 48 months and took possession of the truk on March 30th, 1978.
My parents drove this truck all over. It was the family daily driver, and I think it was our only vehicle for much of that time.
Once the movie Hooper came out, my folks thought it would be interesting to try and verify the dealership claim that the truck had in fact been used in a movie. So, they contacted IH and made some inquiries. IH was not aware of any of their vehicles being used in any movies, but did confirm that only one fire orange Scout SSII Baja Cruiser had been sold into the South Bay up to that time. If the studio had not used my parents truck, the next closest Baja Cruiser was in Colorado.
A while after they purchased the truck, after the warranty expired, the transmission began acting up. My father took it to the dealer to be serviced, and the service completely rebuilt the tranny, even though it was out of warranty, and told my father they would bill it to the movie studio.
My parents drove this truck all over. It went to the 11,000' ridges in the High Sierra's outside of Owens Valley in California, through sand storms in the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, all over California, then on to Arizona when we moved there. It was a strong reliable truck the whole time.
We eventually moved to Washington State in 1988 where it began to develop serious transmission problems. Seems that on an earilier wheeling trip, my father had driven onto a sandy embankment next to the Mojave. Evidently, the bank collapsed and dumped the truck nose first into the water. The water did not get into the carburetor, but it did get into the tranny fill spout and with the water came grit. We flushed the fluids, but the damage was done.
The tranny got so bad that the only way to get it to shift into reverse was to run the RPM's way up to build up pressure, then when it did finally shift, it would slam into gears. You can guess that before too long something broke. He sheared off the tranny output shaft. He was not in a position to fix it, so he parked it and tarped if for 3 years.
About this time I graduated and got a job. I peeked under the tarp and saw this machine sitting there, full of spiders and leaves, mold and mildew everywhere, and decided to resurrect the beast. I pulled the tarps, cleaned out the leaves, washed down the entire interior, aired the tires up, drained, flushed and refilled the fluids, pulled the distributor wire, and cranked it a few times to move the oil around. After a few seconds, I reconnected the coil wire and the truck fired right up. The tranny was still trashed, so I pulled it and hauled it down to the shop. They rebuilt it, and I reinstalled everything. At that point, I made my father sign over title and the truck became mine.
Since then, I have made many small improvements and modifications. Helper springs lifted the tired old springs back into shape. Recessed u-bolt plates, off road carb, front brush guard, new (used) soft top, and a multitude of other things. Now, I run it on the PNW trails a couple times a month. It has picked up a few dents and dings along the way, and certainly is not a show truck anymore. But it is a worthy trail truck and gets a lot of attention. I'll own this truck till I die and continue to make improvements and modifications as I go.
Patrick
77 SSII - The Hooper Truck
Contributer: Patrick Hooper
