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.

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2 of 41 comments

Doug-g on Jan 24, 2014

Wake me when you find a Helms Bakery truck.

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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

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