History Panel trucks and Suburban types; let's see them

I bought this '52 to assemble and flip but no one wanted it.



After trying to sell it for over a year I finally started parting it. Sold everything except the cab. I bought a farm wagon running gear and placed the cab on it, installed an extra '48-50 front clip and will become yard art as soon as it gets warmer and I can hose a couple of coats of Ford blue tractor paint on it.

 

Some keepers, deluxe trim

 

Cloverdale Creamery delivered milk to my house when I was a kid. last time I checked these trucks were still there.

 

Very kool huckster

 

this truck has been cruising around the Bay Area just like this since at least the 80's.

 

nice variety display truck.

Hello,

We used to see these old open side trucks come by our Westside of Long Beach house to serve the community. Mainly housewives who loved the fresh produce from local farmers and fresh fish from the nearby harbor docks. As soon as the fishing boat came back home, these open side ice laden display trucks were in our neighborhood.

Our mom used to love the fresh fish truck as they had the best and freshest fish from the local waters. The stores advertise fresh fish, but were usually frozen and then thawed. These trucks just got the load of fresh fish from the boats in the local harbors. Then a few miles to our neighborhood, usually sold out by the end of the lunch hour.

My wife and just happened to see this unusual Chevy panel truck. She saw it a block away as it stood out from all of the rest of the local normal cars and styles of modern designs.

Its official name is : 1937 Chevy Canopy Express in Yellow/ Blue

It was unusual to say the least and I called the owner to get more details of the panel truck. It is one of only a few left in the USA and only 4 are somewhat finished or finished like this Yellow/Blue panel truck.

That puts it in a definite rare category…

This Chevy panel truck is rare, but fully functional as a driver all over So Cal. The information I got was that it was once used, like all of them, as a street side delivery service for fruits and vegetables. The panel truck would pull up to a community and roll up the side awnings to show its wares. Then the neighbors would come out to purchase, usually, the freshest fruits and vegetables.

It sounds like a different version of a Helms Bakery Truck. Except the Helms Bakery Truck in our neighborhood had that awning over the two rear doors. Whereas, the side panels were still solid steel as panel trucks are built.

In our old,Westside of Long Beach neighborhood, there was one panel truck that was very familiar. A vendor would drive this unusual truck that had a side opening to showcase his fresh fish, sitting on beds of ice. My mom was a stickler for fresh fish and if her favorite neighborhood store was out of a certain kind, then this street vendor came around once a week.

He would go to the local Terminal Island docks and get fish from the fishing fleet that just came back to the harbor. In less than an hour, he would deliver it to our Westside neighborhood that was within several miles from the source. He knew his clientele, the close location and by the time he left the block, he was almost out of the freshest fish sold anywhere.
An internet photo, but the Westside of Long Beach vendor 's truck was this color with actual whitewalls. A pure fresh fish, panel delivery truck in front of our driveway, was the scene every week. Ice on the bottom and a layer of full ice covering the fish prior to our mom and the neighbors buying their "fresh fish."

The street vendor has some kind of side panel that he put up from the inside as he drove away when he was finished for the day. His awning was just pulled down and secured, if he was just going down the street to another close by location, if he had any fresh fish still covered with ice.

All small photos are from the web, except for the two, local So Cal Yellow/Blue Panel Truck...YRMV

 

the one i should have kept

 

Is there any more to the story behind this one?