Vintage Thing No.108 - Hustler ice cream van

A six-wheeled ice cream - more refreshing than a four wheeled one.

This post is prompted by an alert from one of my Imp Club mates, James Henderson, about a six-wheeled Hustler ice cream van for sale on Ebay. The general reaction was "Wow that's rare!" and "How cooler could you get than a six-wheeled ice cream van?"

Mine was "But I've bought an ice cream from one of those!"

According to the vendor only 7 were made and the one I saw was in Scotland in 2007 (check). It was on the sea front at North Berwick and as soon as I spotted the six-wheeled Hustler ice cream van, I had to have an ice cream from it.

The Mini-based Hustler range of kit cars took angular to new extremes. They sprang from the prolific drawing board of William Towns who throughout the eighties seemed intent on designing cars with a ruler. If you're careful about proportion it should theoretically look okay. Some of his designs worked, some didn't but in my opinion the Hustler did - most of them.

The Hustler began as a light and airy all-purpose multi-purose vehicle and Towns found the original concept remarkably versatile. There were plywood bodied versions, four wheeled ones, a stripped own one called a Hellcat and a memorable six-wheeled limo that used Jaguar XJ12 running gear.

As far as I know this ice cream version of the Hustler is the only purpose built commercial variant. I wasn't aware of Hustler ice cream vans until I saw this one and asked the ice cream man quite a few questions about it. From memory, the one I saw was a 1275cc version (the one on Ebay is a 1000cc) and at the time he described the ice cream refrigerating and road performance as adequate. The interior is made up of easily cleaned GRP blue mouldings and I told the ice cream man that the integral seat looked like an instrument of torture.

Would you want to travel any distance in this seat? Honestly?

"No, no," he said, "it's really very comfy."

So it seems Bill Towns knew something about ergonomics as well as how to wield a ruler.

Looking at it again, I remain to be entirely convinced. I am a 95 percentile male and simply don't fit some things.

It looks remarkably like my old potty, too.

Have a look at this one on Ebay. I'm sure in some ice cream turf wars this machine could be the secret weapon. Note that it sells hard ice cream not the Mr Softee variety.

Or you could start your own religion with it.

As my sister said, when she saw it, "Where's the pope?"