- [Announcer] Did somebody say ice cream?
(upbeat music)
- We all have a different idea
of a dream car build.
Some people beef up the suspension,
throw on some off road tires, and hit the trails.
Some strip it down and take it to the track.
Others, like my man John,
buy a little teeny teeny tiny van from Japan
and turn it into the most badass ice cream truck ever built.
It's time to go bumper to bumper on this
1992 Daihatsu Hijet ice cream truck!
(upbeat music)
It's hot, but luckily we partnered with Nos Energy Drink
for this episode of Bumper 2 Bumper.
I couldn't be happier cause Nos Energy Drink
gives me that good energy.
Both in my body and in my mind
to be the host that I know I can be.
Now back to the show.
Big Bro loves himself some ice cream.
But when Christina said
that we'd be doing an episode on an ice cream truck,
I wasn't exactly
crappin' my woolen trousers with excitement.
Unless it's the ice cream truck from Twisted Metal.
That thing is freaking rowdy.
But then I saw this truck and got real pumped.
You see, this van and shaved ice business
is a family affair.
From the build, to the custom paint job,
down to how this business operates
is all done by one close-knit family.
The owner slash builder of this cute little guy
John Salazar wanted to do something different.
John's history of car modifications goes back generations.
He was born in L.A where his grandfather
owned and operated a shop
where they built custom lowriders.
When John became old enough,
he started learning the trade from his dad, Luis
at his shop in Florida.
John says if you had a question, he had an answer.
They carried on the tradition at his father's shop.
Building extravagant custom lowriders.
When John turned 18, he enlisted in the Navy
and was shipped off, quite literally.
The Navy uses ships.
I don't know if you knew that.
He had stints in many different places,
but the ones that stuck with him
were Japan and Hawaii.
You can tell.
(upbeat music)
Nowadays, John has a family of his own.
And one of their favorite family activities
is going to car shows.
And it was at one particularly sweltering
South Florida car show that John had a revelation.
No one was selling anything cold.
Like can you guys tell by my face
it's hot as frick down here.
And no one at the entire car show
was selling anything cold?
The heck!
So his son suggested that they do ice cream.
But then John remembered how popular
shaved ice was when he was stationed in Hawaii.
There was nothing like it anywhere close
to these car shows in Florida.
And before you blow up in the comments,
I know there are shaved ice places in Florida.
I'm not a frickin' idiot.
But are there shaved ice places
near car shows in Florida?
No one knows, no one will ever know.
The point is John saw a potentially killer market
by bringing shaved ice directly to them.
He knew that he was gonna sell.
So it was time to figure out
what he was gonna sell out of.
John found a sweet VW Vanagon and scooped it up.
He was about to start working on it with his dad,
when the family fell on hard times
and was forced to sell the V-Dub.
Life is hard.
Things get better if you keep an open mind,
just a little tip from the Big Bro.
Luckily, things got better for John and his family
and they started looking for what would become
their new shaved ice truck.
They looked and looked and finally,
some popped up.
It wasn't the cult favorite Vanagon,
but it was still something really special.
This 1992 Daihatsu Hijet microvan.
(upbeat music)
This was a stellar find.
As Daihatsu didn't sell many vans in the United States.
Hijets were a popular cage truck in Japan
and a bunch of other places where space is an issue.
Not in the U.S!
We like our vans like we like our jeans.
big and wide.
I'm talking JNCOs, baby.
Export Hijets got massive!
993cc, 3 cylinder engines,
that put out a small herd of 50 hearses.
You could choose from a 3-speed auto
or a 5-speed manual.
These tiny trucks even came
with all-wheel drive as an option.
But the one that John bought off of Gregslist,
wasn't exactly stocked.
Inside the microvan was the engine and transmission
from a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle.
Definitely a weird swap, but definitely
also definitely an upgrade.
The Hijet was a unique find but it was in bad shape
when it got to John.
The engine barely ran
and the whole thing needed some TLC.
He brought the van to his dad's shop
and they started fixing it up.
John knew that because this van was so rare,
finding many of the replacement parts
was probably not gonna happen.
So instead of waiting around
for overnight parts from Japan,
he and his dad used whatever they could make work.
They installed a breakmaster cylinder
from a Volkswagen bug and threw in
an 8.8 rear differential from a Ford.
John decided to leave the Gold Wing engine in,
because, you know, why not?
It's already in there.
It's located right in the middle of the
chassis and it hangs a bit lower than the stock engine.
This presented a problem,
because he initially wanted to drop the van lower.
But there's only about five inches of clearance
between the engine and the asphalt.
So, that planned was ditched.
Now worries, though!
Now that they had all the engine, internals
and other mechanical necessities working properly,
John and his dad had the freedom
to start tricking this thang out.
(laughs)
They added theses sick reupholstered
Recaro seats by E3 Customs,
with racing harnesses from Seatbelt Planet.
Custom fender flares, and 15-inch, fat-laced,
F01 wheels by AME.
The whole back is setup for slanging iceys.
Inside you'll find everything you need
for delicious shaved ice.
A generator, chalkboard for advertising,
syrups galore, and a butt-ton of ice.
And they used to have two working sinks back there
that can pump out both hot and cold water.
But those got taken out to make more room for storage.
Just wash your hands with melted ice, right?
It's the same as water.
Everything on this van
was done by John and his father, Luis.
Even the amazing airbrush job.
They chose striking colors that would pop
even in a sea of eye catching show cars.
They even custom fabricated the mascot,
Snokyo, that lives on top of the van.
(upbeat music)
When it came time for John to pick a name
for the business, he harkened back to his days
on the navy base in Japan.
People native to Tokyo had a nickname for the city
whenever it snowed: Snokyo.
So John chose to call his business Little Snokyo.
And this mascot's name is Snokyo.
(foreign language)
Though the microvan was mainly John and Luis's
hands-on project,
the reason John wanted to build it in the first place
was so he can spend more time with his whole family.
So now John's wife and their two kids
join them in the Hijet wherever it goes.
I saw them driving down the road.
I went to get snacks.
Together they hit up as many car shows as they can.
Slanging shaved ice to sweaty car nerds
like you and me.
(upbeat music)
(ice cream truck music)
Guys, I'm so excited to announce
that our podcast Passed Gas is live.
You can check it out anywhere that you listen to Podcast.
Passed Gas is all the fun, stories from car history.
It's like this show, but an hour long.
It's passed gas, not about farts.