Carnation Truck Update!

Everyone who was ANY-one had their photo taken at the Carnation Truck parked on West Center Street at Disneyland. Just look at this couple from September 1959. I sure hope she didn’t drop those ice cream cones!



But what happened to that truck? A while back, I was approached by Elbridge Stuart who wrote, “You will be glad to know the truck lives in a museum at the Carnation Farms in Washington just outside of Seattle. It also still runs.”

He followed up with more great information:



“Here is a frame grab from a video of a 1950’s TV show called “Success Story” and was sponsored by Richfield Oil and Gas and documented successful companies. In this particular episode, they toured a Carnation ice cream plant. As they were about to roll the credits at the end, they showed an old truck running around the back lot of the plant. In looking at the picture, we thought it was the Disneyland truck that might have been loaned to Carnation for the shoot. It does have the same markings and says Disneyland on it. However, the Disneyland truck was a ¾ size reproduction using Model A and T parts. The truck in the video is much larger and is full size. Perhaps there were two Disneyland trucks though I don’t think so. It may be the other old truck we have which has been repainted several times.”

How about these July 1955 Disneyland Opening Day shots of Walt Disney and Elbridge’s father?



They got to drive the truck filled with gallons of ice cream to open the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street, U.S.A. This is one way to be popular with the public!



Elbridge was also kind enough to send these photos of how two of the three trucks at the museum look today:







“The one on the left is a full size Model T that we are unsure of its history. We think it is the truck seen in the frame grab, which shows the truck painted like the Disneyland truck which is on the right of these photos. The real Disneyland truck is ¾ size and was done to mirror the scale of the buildings that it was parked alongside.”

Here are a few more shots if you haven’t had enough already:





For all you gear heads out there:



Not enough you say? Eldridge also sent pages from the March/April 1956 issue of "Carnation Magazine":





About nine years ago, Elbridge also shared some of this material and additional backstory with Gorillas Don’t Blog.

Thanks to Elbridge for all these great photos and the knowledge that the Carnation Truck is still alive and running! I think I’m going to go have some ice cream to celebrate!

See more vintage Carnation Truck at Disneyland photos at my main website.