Who could have guessed forty years ago that Mercedes vans would one day be plying our streets? Of course, that goes for a whole lot of things that have changed that would have been hard to anticipate, but let’s stick to vans for the time being.
CC Outtake: Delivery Vans, Then and Now
– Posted on August 21, 2014
In a world where everyone’s bread has to be baked by an artisan, beer has to come from a microbrewer and coffee has to come from a barista, it should be no surprise that everyone’s stuff has to be hauled by a Mercedes instead of by a Chevy.
Is it just perspective, or is the Step Van quite a bit wider? IIRC, the Step Vans were aluminum bodies. The Sprinters are most definitely not. Every time I see an older one, it is almost always white and is showing off rust in some of the most random and fascinating places.
The Step Van is wider than the M-B, I’m too lazy to look up the actual numbers but it has to be at least 8-10 inches wider. The narrower European vans still look sort of odd to me but then I’m surprised by many things. I will hear someone talking about “back in the eighties” as a long time ago, go WTF, and then it dawns on me that the 80’s were 25-30 years ago. What happened?
Yes, these two aren’t really directly comparable. The American style delivery van was developed from a time when there were lots of actual delivery services; everything from milk, vegetables, dry cleaning, packages, etc. And of course the plumber and electrician. With their big sliding doors and high perch seats, they were perfect for that.
That style was essentially unknown in Europe, or at least quite uncommon, as folks walked to the little stores in their neighborhoods. The larger Mercedes vans (T2) would be more comparable to the bigger step vans, but still didn’t have the front sliding doors. The Sprinter started out a size smaller, but has grown to be quite large now too, having taken the role of both small and larger vans in the line-up.
The British liked step van type vehicles in the 60s and 70s and had sliding doors even on small vans like Bedford CAs and Transits. The Ford A series in the picture is typical of larger British walk through vans of the era, even though this particular one belongs to a fire brigade.
Right; I was thinking of the continent more. But yes, the Brits did have lots of sliding driver’s door delivery vans. I always loved the little Bedford: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/cc-outtake-1966-bedford-ca-ice-cream-van-the-sun-always-shines-in-england/
Commer got the ball rolling with the Walk-Through in 1961. As the ad below shows, you could get it as a chassis-cab, and a driveaway chassis with the front clip only was also available. It lasted into the 70s, eventually wore a Dodge badge, and was replaced by the Dodge 50, a reworking of the U.S. Tradesman B300 van & Kary Van.
Mercedes brand perception North America vs Europe. Mercedes has built vans, buses, small and big trucks, farm tractors and Unimogs since many, many decades.
As a matter a fact, a big Mercedes truck was rarely on the short list of truck drivers. It has become better lately, but a Mercedes was a typical “big fleet” truck. Drivers mostly wanted something else. Completely the opposite of their cars back then.
Its the same way in the US, Mercedes has owned Freightliner since buying it from Consolidated Freightways in 1982. With the possible exception of the Coronado, all “Freightshakers” are considered generic fleet trucks. Its the fancy pants PACCAR (Kenworth & Peterbilt) that are the trucks most drivers aspire to.
Ditto for Internationals. Mainly fleet haulers.
Best image – most “prestige”: a Scania with a 16 liter V8.
Then all other Scanias, Volvo and DAF.
Next MAN and Mercedes.
Finally Renault and Iveco. (the fleet haulers)
I think this sequence is pretty accurate.
Look JP, a premium Benz……hauling premium liquid manure.
Source: http://www.tractorfan.nl/picture/640267/
Don’t you mean highest quality natural organic soil nutrients? Regular manure would be hauled by a Ford. 🙂
Well sure ! And if you’re want to haul ass you use this.
So that’s the Lamborghini of tractors, then.
That’s a watertight conclusion.
I’m pretty sure the GM StepVans are steel body also although the Grumann bodied ones are aluminum
They were available in both steel and aluminum. The true GM Step Vans were built for GM by the Union City Body Company in Indiana. GM also sold the P-series chassis to other body builders such as Grumman.
The IH Metro (at least the boxier 2nd gen Metro from the ’60s) was also available in steel or aluminum.
I remember when delivery vans looked like the Grumann Chevy Step Van. I like the style of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, but I like the relative simplicity of the Chevy Step Van.
There still are lots of those Chevy/GMC “Value Van” and such around, there is a big bread factory that still has a bunch of them in their fleet. The styling of these big panel vans was so little changed over their entire run, I think the original bodystyle came out in 1967 and it was made all the way till 1993 at least, if not longer, later GM just stopped making the bodies and just sold the bare chassis to body makers.
I think that’s been the UPS model for their old-style trucks–when the mechanicals wear out, just swap in new engines/transmissions/suspension and keep rolling (Think those are aluminum also.) They were also smart to lock in that “UPS Truck” shape by controlling the entire supply–they don’t sell old trucks. Just re-use, and when the body is used up, scrap it.
These Sprinters are thoroughly more modern, yes, but the don’t cut it where sliding doors are still needed. I wonder if most sliding-door van makers are specialists now? Most of them don’t seem to carry badging of any kind.
Mercedes van with front sliding doors. (Photo: W. Behn)
UPS does like their sliding doors, no matter where they go 🙂
…..comes with the package.
What they like are walk in trucks as that significantly improves their efficiency. When the fleet I used to maintain got a bunch of Sprinters the vast majority of the drivers would rather have one of the 80’s P30s over the Sprinter because the Sprinter added 1-2 hours to their day and they were much more fatigued at the end of the day too. With a proper walk in truck you leave the curbside door open walk in the back grab your item and then out the door in seconds. Yes the Sprinter was better riding and all around more comfortable getting to their route but the majority of their day was spent in their route so that won over. The fact that a Sprinter cost more to run that the old step vans combined with the fact that the drivers didn’t like them led them to go back to purchasing proper walk in trucks.
I noticed that, too. UPS went into Sprinters in a big way when they came out circa 2006 but by 2010, they were back to their Ford based, walk in vans running on cheap to maintain and buy LPG.
Interesting that UPS tried Sprinters north of the boarder I’ve never seen one in UPS livery around here. They have gone away from the diesel powered trucks but at least in this area they are all gasoline powered, I was actually at the pumps next to one last week.
Now FedEx has used a lot of Sprinters but recently they were going with the new Isuzu chassis trucks, though just today I saw a Promaster in FedEx livery.
I’m surprised they didn’t make Mercedes install round sealed beams as part of the UPS signature “look”.
I’ll always remember what someone who worked at UPS told me, “there are no 2nd owners for a UPS van”
Sealed beams = not allowed. (NICHT ERLAUBT !)
Das ist schlect. As a kid, I pined for those super cool-looking European headlights over our dorky American sealed-beams (req’d since the ’30s), but now that I have a household budget, I appreciate the lower cost of sealed beams, which are commodity parts. This is why fleet trucks here often still use them.
Besides, round sealed-beams look cool now that irregular or rectangular headlights are the fashion.
Früher war aber alles besser. Until about 10-15 years ago, old-fashioned light bulbs were just as common and easy to replace as sealed beam lamps. Of course, the advent of xenon and LED lamps made life considerably more difficult….
Forgot to mention one more advantage of sealed-beams: Glass doesn’t yellow or scratch as easily; just the same, there are aftermarket products which clear up plastic lens-covers.
That is true they have them made with their proprietary front clip, at least in NA, and they go to great lengths to prevent someone else getting one of their trucks. The local wrecking yard/scrap metal buyer has the contract with UPS and they are only allowed to remove, fluids, tires, and batteries before they crush them and they either have the UPS representative there or have to take and send a video of it going into the crusher complete. Of course they are kept around the UPS facility and parts are scavenged off of them for awhile until they are sent to the crusher.
It all seems a bit ridiculous, just to make sure nobody can buy a burger from a food truck with a UPS “face”.
I’ve noticed over the years that UPS removes all the emblems on their vehicles too…sounds like a very paranoid company if you ask me. Does anybody know what that is all about?
UPS doesn’t remove the badges they have the built to their specs and that does not include any badges.
It is crazy that they go to such lengths to prevent them from having a second life. It certainly would be cheaper in the long run to sell serviceable trucks for more than scrap value.
I just don’t see many people who would want to impersonate a UPS driver.
I’ll take the Chevy…
Those old delivery vans just look right to me…
But I also get excited when the ancient sugar beet trucks come out of hibernation in the fall. Some of them barely seem roadworthy, but it’s exciting to see some of the really old stuff.
Many of those Step Vans are now getting a second (or third) life as food trucks, mixed in with Sprinters as the newer platform of choice for conversions.
It is amazing how little the basic shape of delivery vans changed over the years. I guess there is only so much you can do with a box.
I have driven US style vans, step vans, and even owned 2006 Sprinter for 50k miles over 18 months.
Econoline and GM Vandura type vans require that the operator work on his knees inside the cargo area. The Sprinter (the tall roof variants) allow a 6 ft driver to stand up. That makes for a far more pleasant work day, as does the less choppy ride.
Step Vans are crazy noisy, windy, and rough at highway speeds. The Sprinter, by comparison, with its fully integrated cargo area is a much nicer t place to work. Step Vans drink gasoline voraciously–single digit mpg. I consistently saw 20 mpg with my turbo-diesel Sprinter—and it weighed just under 10K lbs.in daily use.
To compare a Sprinter with a Step Van is akin to comparing a 1960 VW Beetle with a 2014 Golf–or Polo. Both were built to satisfy roughly the same market, but they are so different in an engineering sense that they are incomparable.
That Ford let the traditional E-line van die is a natural progression. GM is unwise to continue with its dinosaur. I just wish Ford kept the “Econoline” designation for the North American market–that name has a certain cache that should not be ignored.–“Transit” means nothing to my ears.
We’ll see who is unwise, the “traditional” style vans do have a large number of followers and they are cheaper to buy and maintain, they fit almost anywhere, like parking garages. I’ve heard complaints from Sprinter operators regarding cost of ownership, parts, and durability, I see some already developing rust out down here in Florida.
Ford’s Transit Connect seems popular, so its big brother may not be such a novelty anymore. I just hope Ford doesn’t drop the ball in reliability or ownership costs, or else GM will eat their lunch with “Chicken Tax” technology.
Who knows, but cloning and rebadging is King in van-land, that’s for sure.
Small van: Chevrolet City Express = Nissan NV200.
Midsized van: Opel Vivaro = Renault Trafic = Nissan Primastar.
Big van: Opel Movano = Renault Master = Nissan Interstar.
They already rebadge a Nissan van and Opel is a GM-brand. You see how easily things can get mixed up in the (near) future ?
I’m starting to see those baby Nissan vans around, in addition to their big ugly brothers (NV 1500+).
They’re probably US-built, to work around the Chicken Tax stupidity that sheltered the Big Three from foreign competition for years. Glad to see there’s more variety in the commercial truck market now.
Mazda made vans for Nissan during the 90s, Vans are a rebadging paradise or maze depending on your view.
Interesting. I was asking someone from our local state ambulance service (here in Australia each state runs a state-wide ambulance service, separate from fire etc. in our state they have over 1600 units) why nearly all of their ambulances were Mercedes these days. They used to have Ford F Trucks with ambulance module bodies. The reply was that the Merc vans offered more room and vastly superior reliability. He continued that these Merc Vans now dominated ambulance services globally (not USA from what I gather) for these same reasons. Apparently the first Sprinter based vans were slow and hard riding, but the newer ones are much better.
About ten years ago, Shepparton used to run a GMC ambulance – usual Ford-type module body, but on a GMC truck instead. Seemed odd seeing as how they don’t import them here. Never did find out what was behind that.
NZ ambulance services went from Bedford CFs to GMCs and are now Mercedes buyers, no comparism to the old beaters the new rigs are quicker quieter better to drive and more economical to operate A mate of mine ran a ex Vic ambulance service F150 as a camper/tow vehicle 351 auto no pwr steer 13mpg alone or towing he fitted LPG and a gas tuned engine, That helped it no end. We used to all work in Shepparton during the season Ive ridden in a Shepp Ambulance from Mooroopna to Shepp hospital dont remember much of it unconscious for most of the trip.
Lots of Sprinters here as ambulances. Like this one, the “Emergency Sprinter”.
(Photo: Mercedes-Benz)
If you need stand up room the for $1500 you stick a fiberglass top on the GM or Econoline.
I’ve never seen a Sprinter that got 20 MPG when actually being used for work the display on the one in the fleet I used to maintain typically showed about 12 mpg.
As I said above the drivers would fight to get out of a Sprinter and into an ancient Step Van since they were a million times better to work out of and saved them a lot of time every day. The driver’s were paid on commission so their hourly wage was higher behind the wheel of the Step Van than in a Sprinter and they didn’t have to contort themselves getting in and out of the van a hundred times per day.
Yes the Sprinter was more pleasant on the drive to their territory but that was the only plus in the driver’s mind. For the owner the Step Van had lower operating costs and greater up time over the long run. So they stopped buying Sprinters and went back to gas powered Step Vans.
I worked for FedEx and drove a mercedes delivery van, so did many of my co-workers. They were OK but bare bones. Ours didn’t even have radios.
The old Chevy/GMC step vans just ran forever. Very economical to own overall. 2 more aspects in which they differ from the Sprinter! Chevy and GMC would sell them to you with either steel or aluminum bodies, or with no body at all if you preferred another upfitter.
These were called a P-chassis when sold bare, they were also the basis for motorhomes too.
And type B school buses too. An inexpensive, versatile platform.
GM never made bodies for them, they were all done by outside companies, yes you could order one from your GM dealer but they only made the chassis, grill trim, and some lighting components.
As far as them running forever far from it, but a 350 being the most sold reman engine on the planet means they are cheap to drop another engine in.
In the fleet that I used to maintain the norm was that you’d need to replace the engine every 3-5 years because they loaded them up and ran them hard. However replacing the engine every 3-5 years was cheaper than keeping a Sprinter on the road for the same amount of time.
Here in the old vehicle belt we still see lots of both. I think I would go with the step van but the closest I actually came was a one ton chev high cube. What it cost me in gas was more than compensated by increased effectiveness. I actually preferred the long (stretched) 300 six Ford van. Sweet spot on effectiveness and fuel economy.
Load up once and don’t return to the shop all day.
A lot of bakeries have gone to selling route rights to deliverymen, and many of those guys have gone over to a pickup-and-trailer combination since they’re not in and out of the truck that much, they’re more comfortable traveling between stores, and they use the pickup as a personal vehicle as well.
@nlpnt: Frito Lay had a whole fleet of these during the eighties. Like this one, they wound up doing other jobs before long. I thought it was brilliant. Lets someone pack your next trailer while you are still out doing deliveries. Forgot about them till your pickup and trailer comment.
I think I would rather work out of this than a pickup because of the extra room. These goosenecks are pretty manuverable.
That’s very sweet ! Those downscaled tractor + semi trailer combinations are pretty common around here. Here’s a Ford Transit tractor. You can clearly see that the Transit also comes as a truck chassis (BOF) with dual rear tires. Not only as a light duty FWD van.
Nope not BOF they are unibody just like the Sprinter and the last of the Dodge vans that were sold as cutaways.
Not BOF only in the US then.
Here’s a Sprinter as a RWD truck chassis with dual rear tires.
Transit is available as cab chassis for building tipper and drop sider bodies on dunno where you get the unibody idea from maybe the FWD models are or perhaps the connect but the big Transits are BOF
@ Bryce, correct. The Ford Transit is available as FWD, RWD and AWD. The biggest Transit with a BOF / truck chassis has a GVW rating of 10,360 lbs (4,700 kg) these days. That makes it a real truck in my book.
No that Sprinter is unibody, those frame rails out back are not separate from the cab it is one welded unit. I think you guys are confusing monocoque with unibody. Monocoque is where the skin of the vehicle is a stressed member. Unibody is where the body is one structure that is permanently joined. Just because there are things that look like traditional frame rails does not mean that it is body on frame. Look at the original Chrysler unitbody construction they had full length rails but they were sheet metal stamped into a “hat” shaped section that was then welded to the floor pan.
@ Eric, thanks for clearing that up. My mistake, mixing up BOF and a chassis with two main frame rails, the ladder.
More info about the Transit, with its “uni-ladder” structure as they call it here.
http://dieseldig.com/2013/03/06/2014-ford-transit-chassis-cab-and-cutaway-debuts/#.U_eaVJUcSM8
Yup, but that page has it all wrong regarding it as something new. The Sprinter has been constructed like that for years for euro vans and the 70-90’s Dodge vans were built that way. Just ask Paul and he’ll tell you that his Chinook motorhome on a Dodge van cutaway chassis is unibody. Now it is a departure for Ford since their vans have been BOF for eons.
Eric, it’s a semantic issue, but I disagree about your use of the word “unibody” for these vehicles. The bulk of the body in the rear on these Sprinters (and others) is not a structural member, thus it’s not a “unibody” in my book. I’d call it a hybrid, at best. Separate frame rails, which are welded to the cab, are carrying the bulk of the body. Why? Because the cab was never designed to be mounted any other way.
The definition of a unibody is “the frame and body are constructed as a single unit”. That’s hardly the case here. Perhaps “partially-unitized” or something else, but not unibody. Or as Ford calls it on their new Transit: a “unit-body-frame construction format”. That’s accurate.
The regular-length Dodge cutaway did keep its welded floor-frame members, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the case with the long wheelbase Dodge Class C motorhomes. I don’t think they retained any of that van rear floor structure. I’ll have to look at one sometime, not that it really makes any difference. Again, the Dodge cab was designed to be welded to its frame rails. But not the large body it carries on its frame rails.
The really long Dodge van based motorhomes use the same style of construction as the shorter ones and the cutaways.
The members back there are not “frame rails” they are folded and welded sheet metal, often multiple layers of sheet metal.
Ford officially calls the construction of the Transit Uni-ladder
No matter how you cut it the Sprinter and Transit are not BOF construction. It doesn’t matter how the cab portion was originally intended to be mounted, the previous generation GM vans were also unibody until you got to the HD cutaway that was “built for GM by Workhorse” (Navistar) they have true BOF construction.
FWIW, this style of body/chassis combination was called “half-chassis” here in India, as opposed to a full-chassis (BOF). The chassis (frame) only exists separately for half the length of the vehicle (loading area), while the cab would be an integrated, unibody job.
The mother of the modern European Van, low loading space, FWD, the Citroën H series
And the VW Type 1 Bus
In ten years, that step-van will probably still be around, while the non-economic repair cost will have long sent the Sprinter onto the shredder. There was a telling comment at another auto blog earlier this year from somebody who worked at a MB dealer – their own dealership wouldn’t even use one of these for a parts delivery/mobile repair vehicle! Repair nightmares are confirmed by my mechanic friends as well.
Heck, even American Pickers got rid of theirs earlier this year in favor of a new Ford Transit (a brilliant piece of marketing by Ford – you can’t fast-forward through an ad when it is built into the show):
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/04/american-pickers-trades-its-mercedes-for-a-ford-transit.html
I love the Sprinter vans. When I worked at a television station, we mostly used Ford vans for microwave live shots until we got a Sprinter. Despite its smallish looking wheels, it was far more stable than the Fords when their archaic twin – beam front end. The turbo diesel provided good pep with good gas mileage. And their interiors just felt more high quality. Unfortunately, the prices for these vans, even used, are ridiculous. Also, a manual trans would be nice but the 6-speed auto at least had manual control.
So my sisters and I have inherited a 1972/73 Mercedes-Benz/ Daimler-Benz L508DG step van that still runs from our father. We have not had any luck locating any others and would be thrilled if anyone had photos to share of theirs. Ours looks like an original conversion, but not sure. Any help would be SOOOO appreciated. We are currently trying to restore/fix up as our dad loved this camper and put so much into it. 😊 The amazing thing is after 6 years of not starting, it started right up with some new batteries. It’s has no brakes, needs a new clutch and an oil change and she’s good to go (besides interior and some electrical stuff.) Thank you for taking the time to read.
Another photo…