Unless your name is Brian Lohnes, paying mind to a medium-duty truck doesn’t really happen unless one is parked wherever you are at, providing a service. Most people aren’t concerned about a tow truck unless their car needs to be picked up off of the side of a road, for example. Very, very few people buy a medium-duty truck because they want one just because, they get one because they intend to work the hell out of it. But big rigs can be eye-catching without sacrificing any utility whatsoever, and classic rigs, the kind that seemed to be made of stronger stuff than fiberglass clamshell hoods and HID lighting, really draw attention when done right.

Case in point is this 1973 International Loadstar 1700 that we found while surfing through Facebook one night. We got a hint or two, but it’s only been in the last day or so that we’ve learned what Summit Truck Bodies, an outfitter out of Wathena, Kansas, has been up to. The pictures show an obviously restomodded Binder with Summit’s 7-series service setup rear unit, complete with a Summit 6422 crane/boom system on the back, low to the ground without being cartoonish, covered in black paint and trimmed out in copper. For that alone, we are on board. But this International isn’t just about working, or show. It’s got the go to back up the looks.

Summit got in touch with the folks at Cleveland Power and Performance in Columbia Station, Ohio to source one of their complete powertrain-on-a-pallet combinations…in this case, they went for broke and snapped up a six-speed equipped Hellcat drivetrain from a Dodge Challenger that had met a premature end. The Challenger might have been toast, but the supercharged 6.2L was barely broken in. Everything from the Challenger, from the fuel tank to the infotainment system, complete with the Performance Pages, was incorporated into the International, with exception of the transmission: an NV5600 was swapped for the Tremec six-speed to make sure that the link between the blown Hemi and the 4.88-geared rear axle wasn’t going to be an issue. No matter what the Loadstar had powering it before the build, the Hellcat is easily outgunning the best engine available, no matter if it was gas or diesel. Air ride all the way around keeps the truck from riding like…well, like a 1973 International, and hydraulic brakes bring everything to a stop.

Summit started the build in October 2016 with the intent of showing it off at their booth at ConExpo 2017 in Las Vegas as an eye-catcher build that can show off how versatile Summit’s capabilities are. They have given thought to bringing the Loadstar onto Power Tour later this year, and we hope that they can find a spot for it at this year’s SEMA show…if for no other reason than it’d stop Lohnes for five minutes dead in his tracks as he drools all around it. Hopefully treating old workhorses to a second life, like Summit has done for this old International, becomes a thing. This is a trend that we could wholly back up!