Whitby Morrison, doing business as Whitby Specialist Vehicles Ltd, is a family-run British engineering company based in

Crewe Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census, the parish had a population of 55,318 and the built-up area had a population of 74,120. ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

. It has been described as "the world's leading

ice cream van An ice cream van (Commonwealth English) or ice cream truck (North American English) is a commercial vehicle that ice cream products are sold from, usually during the spring and summer. Ice cream vans are often used for street vending and ...

manufacturer".

History

Bryan Whitby (13 May 1932 - 1 July 2016), born in Cheshire, started out as a bodywork apprentice at J.H. Jennings in

Sandbach Sandbach (pronounced ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cheshire East borough of Cheshire, England. The civil parish contains four settlements: Sandbach, Elworth, Ettiley Heath and Wheelock, Cheshire, Wheelock. At the 2021 United Kingd ...

, and later did national service in the

Royal Army Ordnance Corps The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was a corps of the British Army. At its renaming as a Royal Corps in 1918 it was both a supply and repair corps. In the supply area it had responsibility for weapons, armoured vehicles and other military equi ...

. He subsequently worked again for Jennings and at Crewe's

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

car works before joining Shavington-based S.C. Cummins in 1955, working on ice cream vans and

narrowboat A narrowboat is a particular type of Barge, canal boat, built to fit the narrow History of the British canal system, locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, b ...

s. He worked with Sid Cummins to develop the Direct Drive System, and, after establishing his own company in 1962, filed a UK patent in January 1965 for mobile ice cream producing equipment through which

soft serve Soft serve, also known as soft ice, is a frozen dessert and variety of ice cream, similar to conventional ice cream, but softer and less dense due to more air being introduced during freezing. Soft serve has been sold commercially since the lat ...

units were powered off the van's drive mechanism. He built his first ice cream van in 1965. All his ice cream vans afterwards followed this design, previously having a separate electrical generator. This system was known elsewhere as

power take-off A power take-off or power takeoff (PTO) is one of several methods for taking power from a power source, such as a running engine, and power transmission#Mechanical power, transmitting it to an application such as an attached implement or separate ...

(PTO), and mostly found on

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

s. Bryan Whitby Engineering Ltd was incorporated on 12 February 1973. In 1989 it became known as Whitby Morrison, after taking over the Electrofreeze business of Morrison Industries based in Sholing,

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

, and in 1998 acquired the Crewe-based S.C. Cummins brand. In 2015, Whitby Morrison successfully sued a Yorkshire-based firm for copying its registered ice-cream van designs, including exterior and interior bodywork and the direct drive system; the rogue operator had bought a Whitby Morrison van and reverse-engineered its design to produce 30 fake vans, worth around £2 million, bearing its logo. In August 2020, two Whitby Morrison vans featured in an episode of the BBC's '' Top Gear'' TV show. In March 2022, Whitby Morrison workers appeared in an episode of the BBC regional documentary series, '' We Are England''.

Operations

The company's works are situated on Fourth Avenue on the Crewe Gates Industrial Estate in

, off the A532 (Weston Road), approximately 0.5 km southeast of

Crewe railway station Crewe railway station serves the railway town of Crewe, in Cheshire, England. It opened in 1837 and is one of the most historically significant railway stations in the world. was appointed a director in 1991, and is now managing director; his son Edward (born 5 February 1982) is operations director. The Whitby family became supporters of

Crewe Alexandra Crewe Alexandra Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Crewe, Cheshire, England. Its first team competes in League Two, the fourth level of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Railwaymen' ...

in the 1950s and commercial partners in the early 1990s. Since the 2012–13 season, the firm has sponsored a stand, The Ice Cream Van Stand, at

Gresty Road Gresty Road or the Alexandra Stadium, currently known as the Mornflake Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in Crewe, Cheshire, England. The home ground of Crewe Alexandra, it has an all-seated capacity of 10,153. History C ...

, the club's stadium. In July 2021, the firm announced a 99-year extension of its stand sponsorship at Crewe. For Crewe's 2024 EFL League Two play-off final at Wembley, the company offered free 99 ice creams from a Whitby Morrison ice cream van at the end of Wembley's Olympic Way. In April 2025, Whitby Morrison was announced as the club's new shirt sponsor. The company also sponsors a stand at nearby Nantwich Town's Weaver Stadium.

Products

Whitby Morrison converts production vans into ice cream vans for the mobile soft ice cream industry. Their products have been exported to over 60 countries. It has mainly converted

Mercedes-Benz Sprinter The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter is a light commercial vehicle (van) built by Mercedes-Benz Group AG of Stuttgart, Germany as a large van, chassis cab, minibus, and pickup truck. In the past, the Sprinter had been sold under the Mercedes-Benz, Dodge, ...

s or

Ford Transit The Ford Transit is a family of light commercial vehicles manufactured by the Ford Motor Company since 1965, primarily as a panel van, cargo van, but also available in other configurations including a large passenger van (marketed as the Ford ...

s, both popular vehicles in the UK. The UK's biggest ice cream van manufacturer, the firm produces around 100 vans a year: 60 new, 30 conversions and 10 vintage van conversions. All new vans are built on a Euro 6-compliant Mercedes Sprinter chassis, which meets rules for particulates and NOx emissions. An electric motor-drive (EMD) system is installed in 80% of the vans Whitby Morrison builds, allowing vendors to switch off their engines and use mains electricity to run freezers and other equipment. EMD systems can also be retrofitted to existing vans. The company has also been developing a fully electric on-board battery system to power the Carpigiani soft-scoop machines it fits, meaning vans' engines can be turned off when they are parked. The first all-electric van was expected to be delivered in the summer of 2019.

Notes and references

* Whitby, Stuart; Earnshaw, Alan (1999). Fifty Years of Ice Cream Vehicles, 1949–99. Appleby: Trans-Pennine

External links

* {{Cheshire Motor vehicle manufacturers of England Ice cream vans Coachbuilders of the United Kingdom Companies based in Cheshire Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1962 1962 establishments in the United Kingdom Crewe British brands Milk transport

History

Operations

Products

See also

Notes and references

External links