(first posted 12/20/2012) During a tour of the Civil War National Military Park at Chickamauga and its many monuments and relics, just outside the south exit of the park a relic of another sort appeared unexpectedly.
It was a Jeep DJ-5 Dispatcher mail Jeep, once a workhorse of the U.S. Postal Service, and all long since retired, I assumed. I was wrong.
This DJ-5 is one of a very small number still in daily use delivering the mail, now as privately owned vehicles of U.S. Postal Service employees, as the owner/driver explained to me. The owner/driver is a very pleasant woman who happily gave me permission to take photos of the Dispatcher, although she declined to be photographed with the vehicle.
The Dispatcher displays the signs of 30 years of service stopped for neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail, with worn and faded paint and some surface rust. Nevertheless, no doubt helped by snow and sleet being rare in the South, it clearly remains a solid and serviceable vehicle, with a few non-original touches applied over the years.
The hood ornament is the most obvious non-original external detail. Topping the five-slot grill that was unique to Dispatchers, it appears to be a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament from a distance – which perhaps would be ironically appropriate, given Daimler/Chrysler’s ownership of the Jeep brand during the 1990s and 2000s – but is actually a peace symbol. The owner said that the hood ornament attracts its share of questions from people mistaking it for the three-pointed star.
This view of the cargo area shows why the much larger Grumman mail trucks have replaced the once-common Dispatchers: there is very little cargo space in a Dispatcher. In the current era of e-commerce, with packages from Amazon, eBay and many others flooding the mail system, the Dispatcher would be overwhelmed by the bulk of packages in a typical suburban or urban mail route. In a relatively small town, though, it still can do the job.
The letter carrier’s office is all business, with a bare metal dash and a few simple gauges.
Fortunately, the solo seat that the letter carrier must occupy for many hours each day has been replaced by a later, more comfortable bucket taken from another car or truck. The ammo box wedged under it provides a useful storage bin.
Letter carriers must wear comfortable, sensible shoes while doing their rounds, and this Dispatcher does so as well. No need for knobby off-road tires on a vehicle that does its work on roads.
This Dispatcher’s appearance was made even more remarkable by occurring at a military Jeep parts dealer and restoration shop. I happened to stumble across the place after accidentally leaving the National Military Park and driving for about half a mile before turning around, which I could have done at any time earlier. The business has a large number of World War II and postwar military Jeep hulks waiting to be stripped for parts or restored. The Dispatcher just happened to come along as I finished taking photos of the shop and its yard. It was a brief, unexpected moment of vintage Jeep overload.
This DJ-5 Dispatcher was a refreshing sight, a simple workhorse still doing its official job after 30 years, much like an old unrestored pickup truck still hard at work, but far rarer. I briefly had the thought of making its owner an offer, but it would have been an offense against nature to take the Dispatcher away from its intended use after this many years. I hope that it stays in service delivering the mail in northern Georgia for many years to come.
My best friend in high school owned two cars – a 68 Cougar and one of these. He had an early morning paper route, and it was a great vehicle for newspaper delivery because of the right drive.
The interior shots bring all kinds of memories rushing back. My friend’s was a 1969 or 70 model, and the plate ID’d it as a product of Kaiser Jeep. It had the little Chevy Nova 4 cylinder mated to a two speed automatic (Powerglide?). The steering wheel and gearshift mark this one as quite a bit newer.
The Dispatcher was really pretty quick due to its light weight. He built a wooden seat for a passenger. A third kid could sit in the back, but it was pretty cramped. In summer, both doors would slide and lock open, so you got a lot of air.
The postal service used to sell these, but there were complaints about a tendency to roll over (although if my friend and I didn’t roll it, it couldn’t have been that bad) and the complete and total lack of any safety equipment other than a lap belt. I don’t believe that the postal system sells surplus vehicles any more. A great find and a very nice writeup.
Someone I used to work with had owned a surplus DJ-5 in high school, in rural Wisconsin. Apparently he and his friends used to deliberately roll it into snowdrifts, then just get out, tip it back up on four wheels and drive on. (Winters in rural Wisconsin can induce boredom, which can induce hijinks with a surplus Jeep.)
Interesting that there are multiple high school stories about these DJ-5s, each mentioning rollovers. Some high school classmates and I talked about getting one, since they were dirt-cheap, but we all ran into strong parental opposition over their perceived safety, particularly their reputation for rolling over easily.
You might be right about the ease of these little vehicles to flip. But, the U.S. Post Office finally ran out of jeeps to sell. They are now working on the small vans and trucks, to make room for a new vehicle.
Wow. These were so common for so long, I kinda didn’t notice they’d become rare. I remember they were blue with a red stripe and a white top, and then this all-white scheme appeared and looked super-modern, to a 10 year old.
As soon as I saw the pic I heard that throaty exhaust pulling away from the curb.
My buddy’s was the color scheme you described. He re-painted it with spray cans of white and harvest gold when an area store ran a big sale on spray paint. He later became quite skilled at paint and body work. As for the spray can job, let’s just say that it looked better from a distance.
Also, another lesson – household harvest gold spray paint eventually fades to a really sickly and unattractive yellow.
In the top photo, after-market helper springs are clearly visible. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen those on a front axle.
I had noticed the helper springs and thought that they looked unusual, but did not know whether they were normal on these DJs or not. When taking that photo, I kneeled as low as I could to get a good view of the front suspension. Seeing the photo full sized, I concluded that it was not as good a view of the front suspension as I had hoped because of the shadows, but that the low angle created a good “hero” shot, hence its use as the top photo.
I actually used a set of those Superior helper springs in an attempt to get a little lift on my F-1all. It did not work.
Wow. Hard to believe.
Note the mace conveniently placed on the upper right corner of the dash. That seat looks like it could be a Recaro.
My current mail lady drives a Jeep Liberty (or Patriot). It has a second steering wheel on the right, hooked up with a v-belt to the left-hand one. Don’t know whether its a home-built jury rig or a conversion unit commercially available.
Works for her.
The XJ Cherokee and TJ Wrangler were both available to the US Market with RHD, they were already being made in Toledo for export. The current JK Wrangler is available for rural routes.
The last the pieces of Refuse Apparatus at my work are equipped with controls for operation on BOTH sides.
Since I live out in the woods all the mail is delivered by contract carriers so there are still a few of the old dispatchers in use. There is also an older Subaru Wagon used by one carrier as Subaru actually had a special order program at one time where you could order a RHD unit that still met US safety and emissions standards. I also used to work with a guy whose wife was a contract carrier and he had 3 of the old dispatchers, her main unit, a backup and a parts rig. A couple of them also show up in the summer used by the independent ice cream vendors.
I think Subaru sold an older version Legacy (ie older than then-current standard model) as the RHD mail carrier wagon in the US. And it was also sold in the UK and perhaps other markets as the “Legacy Classic”. I wonder if they had a surplus of RHD models after the changeover and turned lemons into lemonade ….
The one I’ve seen around here was a Legacy and was a current models when I first started seeing it. From what I understand you had to special order it with a special contract number or somehow prove you were a contract mail carrier and then it was something like a 4 month or more wait.
There was a RHD Legacy delivering US mail in an American movie I watched recently. Could have been Men In Black II, or maybe one of the awful Scary Movie franchise. Confused the heck out of me at the time, so I turned to the the interwebs, which did indeed inform me that Subaru sold them in RHD in the States for mail deluvery.
I’ll have to take a closer look at our mail carrier’s rig, but iirc it’s one of these too.
I remember the USPS buying a big fleet of Ambassador sedans with RHD to use for rural mail delivery, AMC’s idea being that they could sell them in Australia and New Zealand too. I never did hear how the latter idea worked out, but I did see several of the RHD sedans in the 70’s and 80’s. They were blue with white tops and a red stripe iirc.
http://www.planethoustonamx.com/stuff/amc-us-mail-ambassadors.htm – here’s a link that shows pix and ordering info for Ambassadors that includes RHD.
I’m not sure exactly what happened, the RHD setup was probably used in the Australian assembly plant, I’m not sure if the Ambassador was sold here or just the normal American. This car evolved into the Matador didn’t it? There are still a few of those around.
We got the Ambassador in NZ, so guessing you might have got it in Oz as well. I think all ours were imported as CKD kits and assembled locally. We had the Rebel and Matador too.
Is that a single pedal model? I saw one once, although the pedal in question telescoped from the floor. The mail carrier just pushed down to go and lifted his foot to stop at the next mailbox.
It does look like a single pedal. I did not notice the pedal layout (or the can of Mace), and I would have asked about it if I had noticed. I can say that the Jeep slowed very gradually just before making a left turn into the parking lot (giving me a seemingly infinite amount of time to take the second photo), as if coasting rather than using its brakes.
I’m pretty sure that is a brake pedal and the arm the missing accelerator pedal operated is just out of sight to its right and up.
Hey, I got the CC Clue. Yay me.
I always found these intriguing vehicles, and wish they had sold them new to the public with a couple of extra seats and LHD. They wewer really popular with hunters around my neck of the Pennsylvania woods, as I recall.
Story time: centuries ago, when I worked for the railroad, one of the yardmasters, known to everyone as Jumpin’ Joe, had one of these things. As I guess they all did, it had the controls on the right side. Legend has it that after getting thrown out of a bar one night, Jumpin’ Joe got into his vehicle from the left, got back out again, walked up to a cop that had just happened on the scene, and complained bitterly about the “SOBs that stole my seat and steering wheel!”
OK, I’m pretty sure that was made up, but still.
I cant believe there are any of these still around!
I remember the “LOOK BEFORE BACKING” sticker on the dash(obscured,but still there on this well worn example). The post office started selling these things for like $200 back in 1988 when the Grumman LLV starting replacing these.
I haven’t seen one of these in quite a few years.
A coworkers husband had bought one of these for cheap back in the late 70’s for his paper route. I remember her telling me that they could look at it , possibly start it? ,but couldn’t drive it before buying it.
Turns out it wasn’t such a good deal for them as the jeep had all sorts of problems,
They drove it for a couple of months then got rid of it.
There’s one of these still being used by a rural route carrier around Greer, SC. It may be the same lady who first delivered my mail about 10 years ago before my neighborhood was annexed into the city and I was no longer on a rural mail route.
There seem to be 4 vehicles favored by rural route carriers in upstate SC and western NC; the Jeep Cherokee, Subaru Legacy, Panther platform Ford or Mercury, and the A body GM platform – mostly Buicks.
I’m a mail carrier and I miss these. The Grumman LLV’s are so bad in the snow (no windshield defroster vent in front of the driver for one thing-3 of the on left side of windshield ) they had to bolt cement blocks in the back so you can move in the snow . Poor ventalation too,the thermometer in mine got up 127 this summer . The jeeps had the floor vents. They were rusting to pieces though. The LLV’s aren’t being replaced. They replace the frames,engines and transmissions. The PO has spent 100’s of millions keeping the old fleet going instead of replacing them.
We just bought a 71 dispatcher for my wife to do a rural rout. So that will be 43 years. Needs some work, but overall good shape. not bad rust hear in CO.
I am a new hwy route deliverer. I have inherited the route and two jeeps from my Mom. The first is a (pic is not loading)1983 or 84 fleet van not sure if cj7? The other is 1972 or 73 cj7. I need to correcting identity each and find out the proper engine/transmission info. Any help on clearifiing would help. Paperwork and Id plates differ.
Also once I figure out the size engine is it cheaper/better/easier to go with sending engine to get rebuilt or buying a crate motor? Any advice and/or info apreciated.
Trouble wirh other photos
Here are my two ’70 DJ5As. I love them and they make mail delivery so much easier. The green one has a original 4 cylinder Chevy engine w two speed powerglide. The white one has a replacement V6 200 chevy engine from a Malibu. Has a three speed GM metro hydro matic trans. I also have my first one a ’75 DJ5D. It has the big straight 6 amc engine with a three speed Mopar trans. It’s pretty rusted and is sitting till I can repair the engine.
EH, you have to DJ5 jeeps, not CJs.
My ’75 DJ5D waiting on me while I put my mail up.
The ’75s AMC 232
The 70’s GMC 153
The ’70s replacement power plant a ’79 GM 200 V6
1970 DJ5A Jeeps at a classic car show during the 2014 Old Soldiers Reunion in Newton NC.
Big differences with the LLVs but the old DJ Jeep still gets the job done!
75 DJ5D with stripes removed and Jeep hubcaps in place on the factory 15″ steelies.
I worked for the USPS for 31 years retiring in 2000. I was delivering mail on foot when the jeeps were issued. Our small town in New York got two. They were a huge improvement even though we still parked and looped. Also I was one of the first female letter carriers hired, the postmaster called me three times after I took the civil service -post office test. He had to hire a woman but I wasn’t sure I could do it, walking 8 miles a day!!
Truth being stranger than fiction, my National Guard unit had a Dispatcher in 1977-80 (might have been earlier). It was LHD and 3-speed auto (never got a look under the hood so I can’t say what engine). Don’t know what happened to it but our Sergeant-Major loved it.
Here’s mine ? Runs great ! Need a Muffler and some rust replacement – found with 80,000 miles here in Idaho at auction this year
They’re 99.99% gone by now. Must be 10 years since I’ve seen one, and that was in a junkyard. It was a super-rare DJ-5G from 1979 with the VAG 2.0 liter I-4 that was also used in some Gremlins and Spirits.
And the Porsche 924!
Wonder how many miles it had on it?
Odometer miles are almost irrelevant on a vehicle like this. An hour meter is much more useful. Hopping from mailbox to mailbox to mailbox etc can wear out a set of brakes in a few months. They can run all day and never get above 30 mph.
Good point.
I don’t see a gear selector. Am I looking right at/through it?
Floor shifter is fairly visible in photo #7. beige knob next to the mail trays.
Ah, thanks. I thought I remembered the ones that delivered mail in our area having a column shift, but perhaps not.
I worked on a couple of these for a rural carrier some time ago. His usual runner was an experimental unit as the Post Office had converted some to diesel. He had the official Post Office parts and service manual for it. Motor was badged Teledyne Continental, but was an import. My guess was Italian. I don’t remember what injection pump it used. 4 cyl with automatic. It had great power and economy. I can’t imagine the AMC powered units being economical.
Nice to see a few of these still running, nicer yet to see them delivering the mail .
The P.O. gave a whole bunch of really clean DJ’s to L.A.P.D., we got shop and parts manuals etc. they were derided and allowed to languish, in the late 1980’s they all disappeared .
I never saw a running one at the P.O. sales lot for under $800 else I’da bought one just for funs .
Some outfit bought big lots of these, cut the roofs and doors off re sprayed them and added big “SAFARI CAR” decals, re sold them .
Oddly most of the used DJ’s I ever saw here in So. Cal. were rusted through at the tops pinchweld .
-Nate