{"id":30815,"date":"2022-09-06T00:03:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T04:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=30815"},"modified":"2022-09-06T00:03:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T04:03:48","slug":"junkyard-gem-1993-aeromate-food-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=30815","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 1993 UMC Aeromate Food Truck"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite things about living in the Mile High City is all the food trucks<\/a> roaming the neighborhoods here. I’m a regular at such fine mobile eating establishments as Tacos el Huequito<\/a>, Mikes2Kitchen<\/a>, and Yuan Wonton<\/a>, and I’m pleased that South Denver’s metal-centric Brutal Poodle bar<\/a> now has its own food truck<\/a>. The sad part about food trucks<\/a>, however, is that they’re\u00a0trucks<\/em>, and sometimes old trucks wear out and have to be sent to the knacker’s yard<\/a>. Here’s a once-ebullient Denver food truck that met that fate and now resides in a self-service yard just south of the city<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This truck started out as a member of the extended UMC Aeromate<\/a> family, built in Indiana by the company now known as Utilimaster<\/a>. I couldn’t find much useful information about this particular model, which seems to have the windshield and nose of one of the many UMC-based RVs<\/a> instead of the typical long snout of most Aeromates.<\/p>\n

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What I\u00a0do<\/em> know is that it’s based on an early-1990s Chrysler minivan<\/a> chassis, complete with 3.3-liter V6 engine<\/a> and the instrument cluster out of a 1992 Plymouth Voyager<\/a>. The 3.3 made 150 horsepower in 1993, and it was installed in Chrysler minivans through 2010.<\/p>\n

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150 horses (and 180 pound-feet) isn’t much for a big truck packed with a complete kitchen, and the strain on a Torqueflite automatic transmission designed for a 3,400-pound minivan must have been severe. I think the drivetrain on this 29-year-old truck just couldn’t hold up under the demands of a hard-working crew of sandwich entrepreneurs in the extreme weather and traffic conditions of High Plains Colorado.<\/p>\n

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The county licensing sticker expired in late 2019, so it took a couple of years for this UMC to reach this place.<\/p>\n

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Don’t weep for the Little Big Sandwich Truck<\/a>, though, because the LBST Empire upgraded to a newer, GM-built school bus<\/a> a few years ago and appears to be slinging sandwiches outside Denver-area breweries to this day.<\/p>\n

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The headlights and marker lights clearly came from a late-first-generation Dodge Caravan\/Plymouth Voyager<\/a> (the second-generation Chrysler minivans<\/a>, which debuted in the 1991 model year, got different noses). The grille looks like typical RV equipment.<\/p>\n

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I’ve seen a few<\/a> junked ice cream trucks<\/a> over the years, but somehow a sandwich truck with a stenciled snorkeling dachshund seems sadder.<\/p>\n

Related video:<\/strong><\/p>\n