Mail-Truck Mainstay: What Was The Grumman LLV? | The Daily Drive | Consumer Guide® The Daily Drive

Grumman LLV

In case you’re in search of a stable instance of fact in promoting, look no additional than the Grumman LLV, america Postal Service’s main last-mile supply automobile for the previous three many years.

What Was The Grumman LLV?

The LLV (Lengthy Life Automobile) entered into common service in 1987, and was designed for a service lifetime of 24 years. Unsurprisingly to anybody has seen a mail truck lately, most of LLV fleet continues to be on the highway, greater than 25 years after the final LLV was constructed.

Grumman was awarded the mail-truck contract in 1986 after the LLV beat out aggressive ideas developed by Fruehauf and American Motors. The Jeep DJ-5 “Dispatcher,” the LLV’s processor, had been manufactured by American Motors.

With a 101-inch wheelbase and an total size of simply 176 inches, the USPS LLV supply truck’s “footprint” is about the identical measurement as a recent Kia Sportage’s.

The LLV was the primary purpose-built USPS mail truck—earlier U.S. Mail supply automobiles have been largely primarily based on manufacturing automobiles that have been modified for mail service. Among the many many service attributes the USPS was in search of have been:

Low price of operation
Reliability
Simple entry and exit
Tight turning radius
Minimal 500-pound payload

The ultimate product was an aluminum-bodied van that includes two sliding facet doorways, right-hand drive, a 1000-pound payload capability, and 121 cubic ft of cargo house. Manufactured at a Grumman plant in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, the LLV rode on structure shared with the Chevrolet Blazer, which was used underneath an settlement with Basic Motors.

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Most LLVs have been powered by GM’s ubiquitous 2.5-liter “Iron Duke” 4-cylinder engine, which was mated to 3-speed automated transmission geared for low-speed operation. Later-production examples of the truck have been powered by a 2.2-liter evolution of the identical engine.

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Almost 100,000 LLV mail vans have been constructed between 1987 and 1994.

The EPA rated the LLV at 17 mpg in mixed driving, although the USPS stories real-world mileage nearer to 10 mpg. That’s a low quantity, but it surely’s comprehensible contemplating the LLV’s duties normally require plenty of stop-and-go driving whereas carrying heavy hundreds.

The unique contract known as for 99,150 vans, most of them to be delivered between 1987 and 1994. The per unit value got here to $11,651, or about $28,000 in 2021 {dollars}. Realizing an excellent factor when it sees it, Canada Publish—Canada’s federal mail service—additionally contracted with Grumman for the LLV. Canada bought out early, nonetheless, changing the Grumman truck with Ford Transits again in 2010.

Although typically dependable, the LLV was (is?) not with out its flaws. The automobile isn’t geared up with air con—one thing its substitute (see beneath) contains—and the cabin heater is liable to malfunction.

Moreover, the LLV generally is a handful in snow. The rear-drive format doesn’t present optimum grip in low-traction conditions, and the truck’s restricted floor clearance might be detrimental when driving by means of deep snow.

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Manufactured by AMC, the Jeep DJ-5 “Dispatcher” preceded the LLV because the USPS’s main last-mile supply automobile.

Worse, LLVs endure from a design flaw involving the placement of the windshield washer-fluid reservoir over the fuse field. Fluid leakage into the fuse field resulted in some 400 under-hood fires in LLVs over time.

As LLVs aged out of their service life and have been retired, the USPS supply fleet has been supplemented by quite a lot of “off-the-shelf” supply automobiles, most of them minivans.

The LLV’s days are lastly formally numbered, nonetheless. On February 23, 2021, the U.S. Postal Service awarded Wisconsin-based Oshkosh a 10-year contract to provide as much as 165,000 new-generation supply automobiles to exchange the LLV.

The Subsequent Technology Supply Automobile (NGDV) contains a considerably cartoonish profile that’s truly a super form for a low-speed, large-volume, last-mile supply truck. The USPS has been deliberating this buy since 2015, when it first solicited proposals for the brand new mail truck. The NGDV beat out ideas submitted by Indian carmaker Mahindra, electric-vehicle startup Workhorse, Utilimaster, and AM Basic.

The NGDV will initially be powered by internal-combustion engines, however afterward manufacturing will shift—at the least partly—to electrical drivetrains. No phrase on how lengthy the NGDV is meant to stay in service, however given the USPS’s report, we’ll probably being seeing these vans for a really very long time. Manufacturing of the NGDV is anticipated to start in 2023, and—excellent news for postal employees—these vans will likely be air conditioned.

Photograph Function: 1951 Studebaker 2R6 Supply Van