Ice Cream Truck ID.

[Gerczak]

Can anyone identify the make,model, and year of this ice cream truck?  It is a great photo.  

 

Thanks for your help and Happy Holidays.

[1912Staver]

Model T Ford, later teens to mid 1920's. 

[keiser31]

10 minutes ago, 1912Staver said:

Model T Ford, later teens to mid 1920's. 

Or TT.

[1912Staver]

I think this one is built on the car chassis . It just does not look quite big enough to be a TT. Also TT's normally have the small running boards without the car style splash aprons. The running board irons are quite close together on a TT chassis.

[Layden B]

Not as old a picture as you might think!!!

[CHuDWah]

56 minutes ago, Layden B said:

Not as old a picture as you might think!!!

Yep, a little too sharp to be old.

 

Interesting that the pictures are the same but the OP one has Edy's livery on the truck while yours has Dreyer's.  It's all one company founded in 1928 by William Dreyer and Joseph Edy - it's known as Dreyer's west of the Rockies and Edy's to the east.

[wayne sheldon]

Dreyer's Ice Cream was founded in Oakland California in the 1920s. Breyer's Ice Cream was founded somewhere back East a couple years before Dreyer's. It took a few decades, but both companies grew and expanded until their territories crossed into each other. Dreyer's chose to market their product East of the Mississippi under the alternate name of "Edy's". They did this to avoid confusion due to the similar names. Breyer's wasn't so nice, and stuck with their original name as they expanded to areas Dreyer's had been in for nearly half a century by then.

The ice cream truck is a 1919 Model T Ford chassis with original wooden after-market body, originally built in Oakland California. It was thoroughly restored in the 1960s to a very high degree of quality. So much so, that it won more than fifty first place and Best of Show awards at over a twenty year period. And they weren't all small shows! Not at all! That truck won Best of Show at one of William Harrah's Reno car shows! Before Pebble Beach became what it is today, Harrah's Reno show was one of the West of the Mississippi top car shows, with some of the highest judging standards in the world in those decades. For ANY model T, and a truck? To win Best of Show at THAT show was shocking to many people.

After it had won many awards, the truck was used by Dreyer's for promotional appearances all over the country. It was lovingly maintained for many years by the fellow that had restored it. And by the way, he is a long time one of my best friends. I have ridden in the truck many times, and even drove it in a parade for him once when he was unable to attend the parade himself.

The black canvas side curtains are changed to display the two different names depending on where the truck was being shown.

 

One more bit of ice cream trivia. It was Dreyer himself that is claimed to be the inventor of Rocky Road ice cream.

Edited November 20, 2022 by wayne sheldon
Additional thought. (see edit history)

[Walt G]

Wayne, thanks so much for the history - soooooo interesting, I love stuff like that as I am a state certified historian for all subjects beyond my interest in the vehicles. This is great the kind of history some of us love to read and share and what makes the forums so great BEYOND the vehicles themselves.

Walt