Model A Ice cream Truck

duffer

duffer

Senior Member
Thought you all might enjoy these pics.
 

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Thats a great vehicle a combination of my 2 favorite things model A's and Ice cream
 
I always thought the name was "Good Humor." This one says "Good Humors." I get the feeling that the company name is Good Humor, but the ice cream bars are called Good Humors.

Here's another photo from wikipedia:
800px-Old_Good_Humor_Truck.jpg
 

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That is SO COOL! How would you keep the icecream cold? A/C or ice block? I am guessing they used a block of ice originally?

Mike
 
I love themed vehicles. That is cool. A fellow around here did an A Pickup, and did not have the Bed, so he built a US Forestry Service themed truck, with a wood bed/work box complete with canvas cover over the Bed, vintage shovels and tools, canvas buckets, flashlights, lantern, etc. He obtained vintage deals for the doors, it looked like a rolling museum.
 
I have restored a 1955 Good Humor Ice Cream truck and have some knowledge of how Good Humor worked (BTW the name is still viable and is now owned by Breyer's). There would not have been a compressor-driven system in that vintage. It would have been dry ice, and the freezer box would have been very thick cork-insulated. The on-board compressor system was used starting about 1954-1955. Ice cream needs to be maintained at about -10*F or else it will go soft (it has a lower freezing point than water due to the sugar content.) They later used F-250 chasses and drive trains because the freezer box was very heavy as well as the payload (ice cream is water and water is heavy as we all know from the last time we carried a 5-gal pail of it)

I have interviewed one of the last surviving management from the old days of trucks on the road and as a teen he used a scraper to scrape out remaining small chunks and pieces of dry ice to make way for a fresh load. The last Good Humor truck would have been about 1973. At that point Good Humor got out of the street vending business forever. Any such trucks you may see now are privately owned and operated, such as mine, although I only do charities.
 
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In the early 50's my father-in-law, Cap Schmidt had two 28-9 rdstr. PU ice cream trucks. They had large refer. boxes in the bed for dry ice & ice cream goodies. On the side of the boxes was "Cap's Ice Cream" He was always an entrepreneur & later had 10 real estate offices in So. Calif. Growing up in So. Calif. I remember the "Good Humor" ice cream man coming down the street with his music playing. Sure brings back memories.
 
Many good memories of the Good Humor man, a neighbor. 10 cents ! ! ! ! and everyone got to ring the bells. Quite a change in prices from then to now also.
Paul in CT
 
I had two Uncles that worked for the Highland Ice Cream Company in Newburgh, New York. One drove a delivery truck. It wasn't a street vending truck, but something like an F-700 with a 22' body for store deliveries.
Still, he had a chest freezer in the basement of his house that was ALWAYS full of the best Ice Cream Treats.
I used to love to go visit him...
Anyone else remember "Butter Brickle" Ice Cream?
In my Die Cast model collection, I have a 1/18th 1948 F-1 Howard Johnson's Ice Cream truck, and a 1965 F-100 Good Humor Truck.
 
I used to own a radiator shop and the Good Humor fleet in San Diego was a very good customer. The mechanics had rebuilt everything on the shelves and they could R&R engine and trans over night. The fleet we worked with included '49 - '52 Chevy trucks. In 60 plus years of screwing around car shops, the Good Humor shop was far and away the best!
 
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