Hi everyone! So Google is proving fairly useless at this point (could just be me, I need to gone my searching skills, but I thought I may as well ask around!) so I hope someone could help me out! I'm just looking for info on ice cream vans. Nice and simple, you'd think. Preferably an American model (hence "truck"!) and preferably, if possible, late 90s/early 2000s. Does anyone know: 1. Any makes/models I could look up? 2. The internal layout (doesn't have to be exact, and will be modified slightly as it won't actually be used as an ICV in the novel - but just a list perhaps of everything that would need to be installed in the van, to make sure I don't miss anything?) 3. Stats if possible like a rough idea of MPG, top speed if you're really gunning the thing, anything else interesting? Thanks so much, everyone. Piper
Various vans/trucks can be outfitted for an ice cream/food truck (thats why you see so many differnt shapes and sizes on pintrest...i like the volkswagon ice cream truck, its cute!) A novelty truck is outfitted for food/ice cream services. Novelty trucks are commercial vehicles, typically multistop trucks Google Multi-stop trucks and you should get a good bit of results from wikipedia, to food truck makers for make and models.
Which happens a LOT for ice cream trucks. It's a low profit, low margin business, so investing $50-$75k in a truck designed for refrigeration is no bueno. Better to convert a van you own already for $5-$10k to make a few extra bucks. That's why you saw so many Frankenstein trucks in the 80s-90s. You just can't make the sales in ice cream needed to justify expensive equipment. Food trucks are a little different. Higher margin, more consistent sales, higher inventory to square footage ratio. That's what screws you with icecream. How much can you physically fit in a vehicle? What does it cost you wholesale? How much is it worth retail? With a food truck you can pack the same refrigeration space with a more valuable product... like a $20 order of paella that takes up less space than a $4 ice cream sandwich. Or a $300 five gallon cambro of taco fixing instead of a $100 five gallon tub of Heavenly Hash. Don't get me started on this. I supervise chefs for a living, and every one of them has dreams of driving a food truck across the country, but very few of them realize that it's really hard to fit the amount of product you need to sell to keep it. It's not a building. It's a truck.
