Richie Clyne’s Bungalow Bar Ice Cream Truck

Richie Clyne’s Bungalow Bar Ice Cream Truck

By Rosalie Triolo

Photos courtesy Richie Clyne

Remember back to those summer days in the 1950s and 1960s, when as a child, you eagerly waited for the clanking bells which would herald the approach of the ice cream truck? 

Bungalow Bar Ice Cream Truck

Richie Clyne has fond memories of growing up on Long Island, New York, and the Bungalow Bar Ice Cream Truck. The “Ice Cream Man” used to come through the streets of New York City and its boroughs once - and sometimes twice - a day. 

Clyne recalls, “I loved Bungalow Bar Ice Cream but most of all the truck with its picket fence door, and the brown shingled roof with a chimney that actually had smoke coming out.” 

Clyne recounts a story, “Years ago I had been looking for a Bungalow Bar Truck to restore, and I found one still in use belonging to an ice cream man out on Northport, Long Island, NY. Wanting to buy the truck, I spoke with him several times. Each time he told me he was leaving it to his son.” 

Twenty years ago, Clyne received a call from the ice cream man’s son, asking if he was still interested in the truck. Clyne acquired the 1957 Chevrolet three-quarter ton truck with Bungalow Bar Ice Cream body; self-contained with compressor on board which had been used until 2000. 

For many years now, when residents celebrate Tuftonboro Old Home Days, Clyne dresses in his Ice Cream Man attire, then arrives at Davis Field on Rt. 109A next to the Tuftonboro Elementary School in his white Bungalow Bar Ice Cream Truck and distributes complimentary ice cream bars to kids of all ages. 

As a young boy, Clyne was (and still is) a passionate antique and classic car enthusiast. He said, “My father always wanted an old car to restore. When I was 12, I found a ‘For Sale’ ad for a 1930 Model A Ford. Borrowing money from my parents, we drove to Maryland with a trailer to pick up the car. What seemed like a million pieces covered the floor of my parent’s one-car garage. I slowly began putting the pieces together, restoring my first car. If I needed help with a door hinge, I’d run inside and ask my father what parts I would need. He’d tell me and I’d run back out to the garage and hunt for the pin or other pieces to complete the assembly.”

Clyne has been extremely successful with many noteworthy accomplishments. There is one which deserves particular attention and acknowledgement. With his knowledge and expertise for restoring antique and classic cars, Clyne, in the early 1990s, was instrumental in initiating a program for inmates at the Nevada State Prison in Indian Springs, Nevada. Inmates, who didn’t necessarily have prior mechanical experience, were trained in the art of antique and classic car restoration. He interviewed them finding the “right fit” for those men who were interested in and willing to learn the many aspects of the restoration process. Clyne paid them the Federal Minimum Wage, a segment of which was repaid to the Federal Government towards their housing and board while in prison. A portion of those wages were deposited into a savings account for each inmate for when they returned to their lives on the outside. He also set up a Victims Crime Fund where a percentage of the wages were distributed. Those inmates fortunate enough, reliable, and trustworthy were given an opportunity to become employable at a trade they could use when released.

Also, the inmates at the Nevada State Prison meticulously and effectively helped with the restoration of a 1934 Diamond T Fire Truck. (The Diamond T Company which produced cars and trucks was founded in 1905 by C. A Tilt in Chicago.) During its years in service, from 1934 until 1963, the Diamond T Fire Truck responded to small fires around the Federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, also known as “The Rock.” Today Alcatraz is a museum, and part of the National Park Services Golden Gate National Recreation Area. On museum tours, visitors are given a look at how the restored 1934 Diamond T Fire Truck pumps water. 

Driving approximately 184 miles north on US-95 from Las Vegas to Goldfield, in Esmeralda County, Nevada is the Goldfield Firehouse Museum owned by Richie Clyne and Buck Kamphousen. On display are antique fire equipment and memorabilia and a restored 1926 Ford Model T Calliope, and an original Goldfield Fire Truck #3 and several other noteworthy historic fire engines and ambulances. In the early 1900s, gold was discovered in Goldfield. The era of the “Mining Boom” took hold. Population increased. Goldfield became the largest city in Nevada and the Goldfield Firehouse was built. Between1923 and 1924, two devastating fires rampaged through Goldfield, leaving it in ruins. Fortunately, the firehouse was built of locally quarried ashlar stone and is still standing over these 100 plus years. The Goldfield Historic Fire Department is now classified as part of the Goldfield Historic District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Las Vegas, 1996, was the opening of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway 15 miles northeast of the Las Vegas Strip. Imaginative and resourceful, Clyne founded and helped create a race car track designed in the shape of a Colosseum with the façade resembling a casino. Seating configuration is defined by the names of the various Las Vegas hotels with seats for over 100,000 fans and parking areas with the capacity to accommodate approximately 65,000 cars. If fans are staying at one of the hotels on the Strip, there are transfers from the hotel to the complex. And in keeping with one of the notable reasons couples visit Last Vegas, a Wedding Chapel was added to the facility. Two years later, Clyne sold Las Vegas Motor Speedway to Speedway Motorsports. 

The marvelous Ice Cream Truck

In the year 1981, The Imperial Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada added a new attraction, “The Auto Collection,” an Antique and Classic Auto Collection. Eighteen years later, Clyne and his partner, Don Williams, were given the opportunity to direct operations and management of the museum offering vehicles for sale or trade.  

For many years Clyne has maintained a repair shop in Melvin Village, NH, a Mecca for antique/classic car aficionados. He returns in early summer after having spent months of traveling from city to city attending car shows and auctions, and in some instances internationally to buy, restore, sell and at times to rebuy and resell antique or classic cars. During the winter months Clyne resides in Las Vegas where he stores and shows his cars, as he likes to call them, his “Stable of Cars.” He affectionately remarked, “Every car has a different story. I love them all.”