Ice Car

So I sold my Honda Civic Station Wagon that I bought for $800 to Jon Rolston for a whopping $ 648 and a chocolate glazed doughnut. Additionally, he promised me that I could do whatever I wanted to his old car – a little mazda hatchback (above – comes with the eagle – free). So, I figured it would be a good idea to fill it with ice. Rolston suggested we sit in the car while it is filled with ice – fantastic. We might as well try driving it at that point – I’m sure we won’t get too far.

jon rolston

I set out this morning to find the best solution. I figured that blowing shaved ice into the car from one of the windows was a reasonable way to go. I hit the Yellow pages. So I started out with the San Francisco Ice Co. I have bought ice from them before to make a home made portable office/ home air conditioner (see below). I talked with them about the project, and they told me that the man who had a machine that blew shaved ice had quit a while back, so I would have to buy about 15 – 40lbs. bags of shaved ice and dump them into the car myself. This seems sort of anti-climactic. I pressed on, and turned my search into one for a snow maker. I did an EBAY search and found that snow makers are 1) DJ tricks for proms and 2) machines that make snow cones for kids. So I amped up my search, and set out for high powered snow makers that you would find at a ski resort – you can read about them at how things work. I figured that local snowboard shops would have the skinny on where to get these machines. There had to be a half-pipe snowboard contest in SF at sometime and someone had to rent a snow maker for it – maybe I’d get lucky.

So, I called several snowboard shops, and the general consensus was to call a ski resort. That makes sense, but what resort in their right mind is going to let a couple of dudes fill their car up with gangs of snow while their in it? I also wonder if we would get our heads blown off due to the pressure of the snow that comes out of the machine? I would open the hatch back and blow it in from there, maybe we could move the machine back at quite a distance?

I still want to rent a machine locally – it would be much easier. I called several rental shops, action rentals (415.826.1830), united rentals (415.642.1300), hertz, and more. The guy over at Action Rentals told me to call a refrigeration company. Okay? By the way all of these people have asked why I want a high powered snow maker. I told them exactly why – they immediately laugh, usually comment “that’s weird”, and wish me luck.

I called several refrigeration companies, Ace refrigeration (415.286.3829), Speed Refrigeration (415.826.8500), and Cool Solutions (800.664.4009) – they must have a solution. The owner at Cool Solution took to the project. He liked the idea, but had no snow maker, and no good suggestion on where to look about town. But he did say in all 30 years of operating his business, he had never received a request anywhere near this. I made his list of top 5 strangest requests. You’ll have to call up to find out about the other 4. He ended our conversation by saying, “good luck, and I hope you dudes don’t freeze your balls off.”

Time to call the lake tahoe ski resorts – heavenly, northstar, sierra, squaw, alpine meadows, and boreal (I know they have real big snow machines). I’m not really sure if the car will make it up there, maybe I could have AAA tow it up – I do have AAA plus, 100 miles of towing! We could play vanilla ice all the way up.

If there are any ice donors, people with snow makers, or someone who is skilled in the field of controlled ice experimentation, please contact me. Thanks.

yes, the first portable air conditioner – genius!

[tags]ice, car, icecar, rolston, airconditioner, snowmachine, funtimes, ski, skiresorts, mazda, custom[/tags]