The Good Humor ice-cream vendor has a special place in American history.
Few vehicles in the history of American motoring conjure more warm feelings of nostalgia than vintage Good Humor trucks. At its peak in the mid-1950s, a fleet of about 2,000 trucks zig-zagged through American suburbs—piloted by Good Humor drivers dressed in all white with black shoes and a coin changer strapped to their belt. The vendors summoned excited young customers with a bell announcing that the ice cream truck was approaching. Today, fewer than 100 Good Humor ice cream trucks are believed to have survived. A fine example—a 1966 Ford F-100 variant—is available on eBay Motors with a Buy-It-Now price of $65,000.
The 1938 Chevrolet Good Humor truck in the Smithsonian’s collection
Harry Burt Changed the Ice Cream Business
Humor began in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1920 when Harry Burt—a 45-year-old owner of an ice-cream parlor—put a chocolate coating on vanilla ice cream and freezing a thin wooden stick into place for easy handling. That made the treats highly portable. Burt assembled a fleet of about a dozen street-vending vehicles, including pushcarts, bicycles, and shoulder boxes, to bring his invention directly to customers. When the gloom of the Great Depression arrived, his inexpensive ice-cream bars lifted the spirits of his customers. Burt revolutionized the marketing of ice-cream products.
An expanding fleet of Good Humor trucks of various makes allowed the company to grow. The Model T was purportedly used. And the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History houses a vintage Good Humor truck in the form of a 1938 Chevrolet.
Notice the row of bells mounted on the truck. The chimes of the ice-cream truck were magical for young Americans across the country.
This Vintage Good Humor Truck Has No Roof
The most iconic of the post-war Good Humor trucks, as seen from the eBay Motors listing, did not provide shelter for the driver. Drivers sat in the front seat unprotected from the elements. A compressor takes the place of a front-passenger seat. The ice cream rides in a refrigerator in the back. There was no door on the driver’s side—ensuring that the Good Humor vendor would safely enter and exit from the curbside. Pictures of ice cream bars and other frozen treats were displayed as a menu. The truck now on eBay Motors sports an “I Like Ike” license plate.
The seller says that the chassis and engine are all original, and “all the bells and whistles work.”
The front-row perspective of a Good Humor seller
A vintage Good Humor name badge, circa 1950s, is available on eBay.
The Big Pivot
The Good Humor company switched hands a couple of times before getting purchased in 1961 by the Thomas J. Lipton Company, a subsidiary of the Unilever conglomerate. The rising cost of gasoline in the mid-1970s spelled the demise of neighborhood ice-cream delivery. By 1976, the company stopped its direct-to-customer business and pivoted to selling packaged goods in grocery stores. By the late 1970s, the company sold off its fleet for about $1,000 to $3,000 a truck.
Vintage Good Humor Trucks Called Back into Service
Fast-forward four decades to the age of smartphones, ride-hailing, and deliver-everything apps. In 2015, Good Humor—still a beloved brand—launched a “sampling tour” with a classic version of the brand’s ice cream trucks. Customers in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Boston could summon the ice-cream truck by tweeting @GoodHumor.
We see our fair share of ice cream trucks on eBay Motors, as well. This supercharged hot-rod ice cream truck is a 700 horsepower screamer. In addition to the vintage Good Humor Truck now available, eBay offers a massive collection of Good Humor ephemera.
