RESIDENTIAL: How One Illinois Contractor Turned Classic Trucks Into Marketing Machines

 

Breast cancer awareness. Thanking first responders. Baseball season. Supporting the U.S. military. Mendel Plumbing & Heating Inc. in St. Charles, Illinois, has a dedicated fleet of custom-painted trucks and vans to observe every occasion. “I like the old trucks,” says Mike Mendel, Mendel’s Owner and CEO. He started his collection of one-off trucks 10 years ago, and over time they’ve grown into viral marketing tools, providing unique advertising opportunities for every season
of the year. “It turns out that they’re good marketing pieces.” 

Mendel reserves about 50 trucks for the routine work that every residential sheet metal contractor does, with 10 to 12 additional trucks and vans set apart for other causes and events. “They have special paint jobs, depending on if they’re used for just showing our business or if they’re used to support a cause,” Mendel says. The humane society asked for support? He had a truck painted to encourage pet adoption. It’s Mental Health Month? Mendel had a truck painted green to increase visibility. Memorial Day is coming? Mendel has multiple trucks decorated with patriotic and military themes that honor our veterans. 

The community pays attention to Mendel’s imaginative trucks. Nonprofits and media outlets feature his trucks on their social media. When he used a pink truck to highlight breast cancer awareness, thousands of people liked Mendel’s Facebook page to raise money for a cancer resource center. Members of the public took photos of themselves with Mendel’s gold-themed “Pediatric Cancer” van to commemorate Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And Mendel’s orange “Random Acts of Kindness” van appeared on NBC Channel 5 in Chicago to promote a local nonprofit that invites everyone to change the world by showing kindness to their neighbors. 

Parades in St. Charles draw thousands of spectators, and Mendel is a regular supporter. He might send three branded trucks to a single parade. “Sometimes we can hand out candy,” Mendel says. “Other times you’re not allowed to. The different parades dictate what you can do.” The number of participants Mendel sends to each parade also varies. “Sometimes it’s just a few guys driving the trucks, but other times we’ve had walkers. It depends on what the parade allows, and it depends on what people are doing the weekend that the parade falls.” Mendel is already considering a Christmas truck for the 2026 Holiday Homecoming, a two-day festival which the St. Charles website bills as “one of the Midwest’s most spectacular holiday events.” 

Mendel has sponsored both the St. Charles Electric Christmas Parade, which is held the Saturday after Black Friday, and its St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which is held in March. As a parade sponsor, Mendel is listed on the official city website all year round. “We’re signed up for the year on different parades,” Mendel says, “but you don’t have to do it that far in advance.”

The Mendel truck collection opens another unconventional marketing prospect: car shows. “You probably could go to a show every day here,” Mendel says. “I drove by one last night. It’s at a restaurant west of town, and I think it’s every Wednesday. Car shows are held in the summertime, usually in the evening for a few hours, but they’re all going to be different, so some might start a little earlier.” Car owners can travel long distances to participate in shows, but Mendel chose venues close to his service area. He found the local car shows online. “There are websites that you can search for old car shows. Some of the shows you might have to pre-register for, but you can just drive up to most shows.” Sometimes Mendel’s fleet manager has taken multiple Mendel-branded trucks to three car shows in a week. 

Mendel also uses the trucks to draw attention to his office in St. Charles. The parking lot is on a main road, so simply parking a distinctive truck there serves the purpose of a billboard or a sign. “There’s some good visibility,” Mendel says. “We change up what’s parked there, on average monthly, though sometimes we’ll have something up a little longer.” When the trucks aren’t on display, Mendel keeps them in one of his buildings. 

The cost of buying the trucks depends on their type and age. “You can spend a ton of money on old trucks, or you can get them for not too much,” Mendel says. One of his dedicated trucks was originally used for regular residential work, while the rest were purchased specifically for promotional purposes. “Some of those are early 2000s, but we bought older trucks when we found them, so it’s a mixture of ages and styles.” One truck is wrapped with the letters painted on, but the others are completely painted with no wrap.

Mendel doesn’t know how many customers his trucks have brought in. “There’s not a way to measure that,” he says. “We don’t get people going, ‘I saw your old truck at the parade and that’s why I called.’” But he’s very happy with this inventive marketing strategy. “Remember, it’s something I like.”