Junkyard Find: 1974 AM General FJ-8A Ice Cream Truck

by Murilee Martin

Published: January 23rd, 2014

junkyard find 1974 am general fj 8a ice cream truck

We see quite a few AM General DJ-5 mail Jeeps in this series, but what about all the big FJ-series mail trucks built by AMC with help from its Overland-Willys-Kaiser ancestry? For that, I had to venture to Southern California. Most of those 1970s FJ-8s seem to have become more or less sketchy ice cream trucks, and it’s hard to find a creepier Junkyard Find than a dead ice cream truck.

The ice cream trucks that aren’t in the junkyard yet can also be pretty scary. Here’s the “Boogie Man Ice Cream” truck, which I spotted on San Leandro Street in East Oakland a few years back. For the full effect, you’ll need to download some authentic ice cream truck music files.

It’s hard to beat this seat for simplicity.

Just a big steel box with an engine, a seat… and ptomaine.

I’m sure this truck distributed many a stale Choco Taco in its day.

The newest Long Beach food-vendor license seems to be 2005.

Am I looking at this wrong, or is this AMC six installed backwards?

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 41 comments

Doug-g on Jan 24, 2014

Wake me when you find a Helms Bakery truck.

Like Reply
Willyam on Jan 30, 2014

Couldn't stand it. Ran a street view lookup on the address for Sauls, and it's still there as an Ice Cream business: http://www.longbeachicecream.com/index.htm 1416 West 15th Street Long Beach, CA. 90813

Like Reply

Recent Comments

Doug brockman There will be many many people living in apartments without dedicated charging facilities in future who will need personal vehicles to get to work and school and for whom mass transit will be an annoying inconvenience
Jeff Self driving cars are not ready for prime time.
Lichtronamo Watch as the non-us based automakers shift more production to Mexico in the future.
28-Cars-Later " Electrek recently dug around in Tesla’s online parts catalog and found that the windshield costs a whopping $1,900 to replace.To be fair, that’s around what a Mercedes S-Class or Rivian windshield costs, but the Tesla’s glass is unique because of its shape. It’s also worth noting that most insurance plans have glass replacement options that can make the repair a low- or zero-cost issue. "Now I understand why my insurance is so high despite no claims for years and about 7,500 annual miles between three cars.
AMcA My theory is that that when the Big 3 gave away the store to the UAW in the last contract, there was a side deal in which the UAW promised to go after the non-organized transplant plants. Even the UAW understands that if the wage differential gets too high it's gonna kill the golden goose.