By today’s standards, this truck looks homemade, but a closer look reveals it is simply a very early, electric van. In this case, very early means 1906, according to the seller. Before the internal combustion engine won, there were many electric vehicles on the market. This one is a commercial van and the seller claims it was an ice delivery truck at one time. More info on Bronx Electric can be found here.
The seller claims this is one of two known examples, but we don’t know how to verify that. We do know you’ll have the only one on your block if you pick this up. This bad boy has two GE motors and chain drives to the rear wheels, so you could say it has something vaguely in common with the Honda S600; but that’s a bit of a stretch and 97% of people don’t know what the hell an S600 is, anyway.
If one can get this running, we must assume the top speed is rather low, so we don’t recommend this for freeway driving! That being said, one could go nuts and install modern batteries and motors, but we’re not sure about high-speed stability, nor aerodynamics.
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Manchester, NH, USA
$15,000 with ZERO bids, reserve not met and 6 days to go
Styling was not the priority here! It’s cool as a retro item, though.
Was Robinson an ice company?
The interior isn’t exactly plush, nor complex. Function before form!
Controls are simple! There was likely no need for a speedometer here.
Rear end is essentially a blank canvas for you!
We assume batteries are under here?
Here’s one of the motors, with its chain drive.
Some sort of ID tag is present.
Ad text:
1906 BRONX ELECTRIC TRUCK, 1 OF 2 KNOWN TO EXIST, COMPLETE, CHAIN DRIVE, BELIEVE TO BE A FORMER ICE DELIVERY TRUCK. APPEARS TO BE 100% COMPLETE AND ORIGINAL WOOD, HARDWARE, GE ELECTRIC MOTORS. OUT OF LONG TERM STORAGE. ELECTRIC HEAD LIGHTS. REPORTED TO BE OPERATIONAL. CALL 603-xxx-xxxx FOR MORE INFORMATION. ITEM IS SOLD “AS IS, AS SOLD” NO WARRANTIES IMPLIED OR EXPRESSED. ITEM IS FOR SALE LOCALLY, SELLER HAS THE RIGHT TO END AUCTION IF ITEM IS SOLD BEFORE AUCTION END. DEPOSIT IS DUE WITHIN 24 HOURS OF AUCTION END.