Cushman's three-wheeled motor scooters were one a familiar site in cities and towns across America. Police departments, utility companies, meter maids, milkmen and the US Postal Service were among the variety of users. Naturally, the little scooter was well suited as a self-propelled street cleaner vehicle as shown below, a 1958 Cushman 780 Truckster cleaning the streets of Minneapolis:
By the early 1957, the little trucksters were employed as satellite refuse collection vehicles in Cushman's home town of Lincoln, Nebraska. They were ideal for hard-to-reach residences, back-door collection, long driveways or anywhere a full-size truck could not reach. When full, the scooters would empty their loads into a "mother truck" (typically a rear-load packer) and then return the route for another load.
During the 1960s, Cushman began to market the satellite collection nationwide, and the system saw wider use and is still used in some areas to this day.
Satellite collection system in use at Claremont, California, circa 1958. NOTE: The scooters shown in this film may not be Cushmans, but the city did eventually use the 3-wheeled Truckster in the 1960s.
