Who doesn’t love ice cream?  I know I do, and I also know that the weather is often pretty warm at a lot of car shows and cruise ins.  It is also common to discover that there are no options for any type of refreshments at a lot of these events.  Often held at parks, car shows offer a captive audience for everything from ice water to ice cream, and even some snacks as well.  If you are a bit enterprising, and you love old trucks, then faithful reader Jon has shown us the way to finally make money in the old car hobby.  This 1971 Ford F-100 ice cream truck, found on EBay in Jackson, Ohio, is currently at $2,999.99 and climbing.  With this one, you can show and sell!

First things first.  The truck is being advertised as a Good Humor Ice Cream truck, and it has Good Humor signs bolted to the sides.  Many vintage Good Humor trucks are distinctively styled, and often command a premium price.  A quick scan of Google images turns up a few panel trucks with Good Humor signs, with just a few like this one.  The seller claims that this is an actual Good Humor van that was built after the distinctively styled ones and was called an inside sales van.  The story sounds legitimate, and is fairly interesting.  Trust but verify, as usual, is the order of the day on the Good Humor claim.  It is cool if the story checks out, but the Good Humor styling is what everyone wants to buy.  The closest analogy I can think of is when Ford followed up the two seater Thunderbirds with the four seat Squarebirds.  Something special was lost along the way.

Regardless, there is a lot of potential here.  The story on EBay is that the seller is listing it for his father, who intended to restore it and take it to vintage car shows.  The seller also suggests that you open a business, write off the restoration as a tax write off, and head off to work.  It sounds like an intriguing idea, and it might just work, especially if you supplemented going to car shows with food truck round ups and kids birthday parties.  This thing could be a cash cow in the right hands.

However, this one could use some help to get there.  It appears to have been painted over many times, with the last coat looking suspiciously like house paint.  To garner sales, your ice cream truck should look nice, especially if you are trading off the Good Humor name.  This looks like a job for those Dustless Blasting guys.  Stripped down, you would probably find out that the body is made of aluminum.  How else could you explain the lack of rust through on this one?

One of the seller’s claims is that the previous owner purchased and installed a remanufactured 300 cubic inch inline six cylinder for the truck, including a number of new parts such as an alternator, master cylinder, etc.  This new engine is also supposed to have 75 miles on it.  I am not sure if that is true, as every remanufactured Ford engine I have ever seen has a good, thick coating of Ford blue engine paint.  I see what I think is a new fuel pump, but that is it.  The seller does say that it runs and drives.

Inside, we can see that some detail work needs to be done to avoid terrifying the local food inspector.  As for the freezers, there are no guarantees by the seller that they work.  An extra compressor is included, just in case.  Given that the inventory lists for every section is still on the freezer doors, there stands a good chance that they were at least used until the truck was parked.  Older refrigeration equipment is usually pretty tough, but parts may be a serious problem.  Another costly consideration would be Freon for the system.  Anyone who has tried to buy R-12 lately can testify to that.  There are pretty good substitutes out there, but they aren’t cheap either.

Inside the cockpit, we can see the driver’s area looks to be all there, and the rest is covered with dirt and mold.  Before you repainted, or tried to sell an ounce of ice cream, this would need to be cleaned up.  I wonder if you could have the whole interior steam cleaned, then scuff it up and spray it with a good epoxy primer.  Follow that up with a thick, glossy coat of white and it would look good as new.  Another concern would be the delaminating glass.  It is flat glass, so replacing it would be no problem.  Replacing the dried out window rubbers would be a real issue, as I doubt you can find them at your local Ford dealer.  Maybe Steele Rubber Products could fix you up with something.

When you look at this truck as a whole, there are a lot of questions to be answered before sticking your neck out.  It would need a restoration to reach its full potential as a money maker.  The restoration, if the freezers are functional, probably would consist of a lot more labor than materials.  The body is good, the signs look to be useable, and the seller even says that the music system works.  You could restore it to stock condition, but I think I would be tempted to add some custom touches, such as some two toning in Good Humor blue to break up the huge expanse of white paint.  I’d also add some mag wheels, ditch the bent up stock bumpers and replace them with some chrome ones from a fifties car that would fit visually, and try to make this truck as upscale as I could to justify selling premium ice cream.  I think the idea of selling ice cream at car shows is a winner, but I wonder of this is the right truck.  What do you readers think?