FOR SALE 1966 GMC "Whip it" amusement ride truck

[Loadstar]

No connection, came across it on Boston's Craigslist. I think it's pretty cool. Thought maybe someone would be interested... http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/atq/4544391015.html

[Reuhlz]

A carnival ride on the road? I can't imagine in this day and age with all of the lawsuit happy people. Better get some good insurance!

But it would have to a great conversation piece.

[JTFormula]

There is two carnival rides on nj CL. One is a small Ferris wheel, the other is something else. Cool just to set up in the backyard and let the kids play.

[41chevy]

New Jersey Area Code around Paterson. Never saw it anywhere on L.I. on display.

[ThaddeusW]

Holy smokes. We just shut down our family carnival business (my grandfather started in the 40's and expanded to a full business in 54. I spent my whole life working with this stuff. We owned a whip back in the 60's/70's and they were a mechanical nightmare. A PTO shaft ran from the tranny to a deep reduction right angle gear box between the frame rails that drove the drive sprocket. To run the ride a lever in the ride body on the wall behind the cab worked the clutch and another lever shifted the PTO. My grandmother told me a story when the clutch linkage from the pedal in the cab broke and she had to ride in the back and work the clutch lever while my father shifted by yelling CLUTCH! Good times. Another whip is owned by aardvark in Brooklyn, we hired them last year and it broke down after 10 minutes. The drive shaft key machined out the keyway in the drive sprocket as the retaining pin broke. Those trucks were a PITA.

There was an older Jewish gentleman, Eugene, who purchased our whip truck in the late 70's. He actually had a number tattooed on his arm from a Nazi concentration camp, he survived as a child but his parents died. He ran the truck independently but worked with us a lot back in the 80's. I remember riding his truck on many occasions. Rumor was his truck is/was sitting out on LI somewhere in a yard after he passed in the 90's. I wonder if this was his truck or another.

A former employee owned one of the ferris wheels back in the 80's and sold it around 89/90. Don't know where it went. Another mechanical nightmare with PTO and driveline problems. The Pirate ships (or swing trucks as we called them) are all over and are man powered though I knew a guy with a gas engine that ran a flywheel with a clutch that dumped the flywheel to a chain drive that quickly yanked the carriage up for a jolting start. We still have our one owner swing truck since 64/65. Have to sell it but what the heck, it served us proud over the years. Time to move on.

[ThaddeusW]

A carnival ride on the road? I can't imagine in this day and age with all of the lawsuit happy people. Better get some good insurance!

But it would have to a great conversation piece.

You can still take it around the neighborhood and sell rides but it is much more profitable to rent it for parties and carnivals. Noone has done it since the late 70's after it was apparent you could make more money renting. For two hours you can charge anywhere from $400-$600 and you can do two or three 2 hour jobs in a day. You can make pretty good money with that truck in a season. I have done plenty of marathons in our swing truck in the hot summer heat with a cooler of water and snacks. All manual pushing, good exercise.

As for lawsuits, not going to name names but a now defunct carnival company had a worker bring a whip truck to his own party without his boss knowing. During the party a little girl fell out of the car and her head was crushed by another, she died instantly. That lawsuit along with the owners absentee method of letting everyone else run his business for him (into the ground might I add) is why they are defunct.

[mowerman]

wow,,,that thing is way cool...bob