Considering its ubiquity in the US, and perhaps Canada, the US Postal Service Long Life Vehicle (LLV) hasn’t gotten a lot of love here at Curbside Classic. Along with the Ford Crown Victoria, it’s perhaps the most iconic public service vehicle here, and true to its name, has been around seemingly forever. But that’s changing.
I’ve lived all my life in urban areas in California, and I’ve seen the transition from a mailman (and back then, always a man) walking door to door with a big satchel, to a mail carrier pushing a 3 wheeled cart, then driving a Jeep DJ, and now for the past few decades the distinctive sounding LLV, which Paul wrote about here. A few years ago, our mail started occasionally coming in a Ram ProMaster (aka Fiat Ducato) but it was still usually delivered in an LLV. But recently, it’s regularly been the ProMaster, and only occasionally the LLV. In fact, for the lead picture of the LLV, I had to find one in a different neighborhood. But once or twice a few weeks ago, we had a new and stylish delivery vehicle.
Yes, a Mercedes Metris (Vito, I think, in other parts of the world). I’d read about these, and not all was favorable. Commentary from postal carriers on one website I found, criticized the interior room and poor accessibility for packages and letter crates. Others felt the perception of getting US Mail delivered in a Mercedes was a poor image for the cash-strapped agency. For what it’s worth, while FedEx and occasionally UPS use Sprinters here, local Amazon vans are all Ford Transits. There’s also been criticism of the USPS eagle emblem replacing the three-pointed star on the front (“How much did that cost?” ‘What are they trying to hide?”) though the traditional MB logo remains on the hubcaps. On the other hand, the Metris is turbocharged and air conditioned, which must be quite an improvement over the LLV. Not to mention improved active and passive safety.
I never thought I’d miss the LLV, but what I’ve found I miss most are it’s sounds. Not just the unique sound of the Iron Duke (which has spawned its own internet legend) but the loud rattle of its sliding doors.
The turbo four in the Metris, or the ProMaster’s Pentastar V6, and their quiet new doors, just don’t say “The mail is here!” in the same way. And yes, to readers outside North America, these familiar-to-you vans are NOT diesel powered here.
But pretty soon, if all goes to plan, even the Metris will fade away and the USPS will finally electrify with these new Oshkosh vans. Hopefully they will still have rattly sliding doors.
Very timely post, DMAN!
A Postal Eagle Metris has been delivering mail in our Columbus, Ohio neighborhood for a year or more. Based on its profile, I assumed it was a Chrysler minivan until I noticed the grille emblem. Do I remember correctly that the steering wheel is on the right?
I, for one, will miss the LLV. They just looked right for the job and due to their longevity project a sort of timeless presence. The Iron Duke is one of my favorite engines from the 80’s. Always the workhorse, but gets very little respect.
The Metris is right hand drive but the ProMaster is left hand drive.
Don’t care about snail mail one way or another, as it’s usually all junk and I do everything online. My only regret is not picking up a Jeep DJ when I had the chance.
My mail has been delivered by a Ram Promaster as long as I’ve lived at my current location; I haven’t seen an LLV in years. I’ve read the Mercedes-Benz logo was removed from the Metris because of criticism of the USPS buying “foreign” trucks, or because it mistakenly made some people think the postal service sprung for S-Class-style luxury-grade vans. They don’t realize that most commercial M-B vans are not at all luxury vehicles, and are in fact the cheapest vehicle they sell in the US. From what I understand, in Europe even VW vans are considered higher-class than Mercedes vans. But we’re talking about a country where gobs of people were convinced to trade in their Cadillacs for Mercedes 240D taxicabs.
The Oshkosh vans will not all be electric; indeed at first the USPS was only going to buy EVs for 10% of their new fleet, That was highly criticized, and they’ve since altered their plans to buy more electric vans, but some (probably that service rural routes) will be gasoline-powered.
I miss the Jeep DJs they used to use, which would be far too small for a modern postal load, a relic from when they delivered handwritten letters rather than Amazon boxes. Even for that they seemed awfully small; the previous Studebaker Zip Vans had much more room than the Jeeps, or at least look like they did.
As I pointed out in my post, the MB star is still on the hubcaps so they’re not fooling anyone with the grill badge. The more I think about it, I’m OK with the Eagle badging but it does seem frivolous; given that the ProMaster and the occasional Caravan, Uplander or Windstar (!) I see around still carry their OEM badging.
It’s just the logo on the grille is much larger than the ones on the wheels. Aside from VW’s 1960s microbuses, I can’t think of any brand with a bigger logo than those on the grilles of recent Benzes. At least the USPS eagle logo doesn’t light up…
We still get an LLV rattling down the street and then bouncing over the curb onto the sidewalk so the mailman doesn’t have to exit the cab or turn the engine off to reach our mailbox (on a post but without a treelawn strip so on the far side of the sidewalk relative to the street). I for one won’t miss it, those vehicles are horribly outdated, inefficient, way too cramped while still somehow being large and cumbersome, and I don’t think the mailman will mind either as he increasingly has to deal with more and more packages relative to mail – in fact he has found that on some days he prefers to make two daily runs – an early one with packages only and then a later one with mail only as it apparently won’t all fit for one trip without repacking the truck multiple times to access stuff. He’s a bit of a cantankerous guy with what I imagine is loads of seniority which apparently lets him do as he wants…
The Metris is a decent option insofar as it is the only thing in that size class offered here in a commercial format but I agree the optics are extremely poor (perhaps more a reflection on MBUSA’s great marketing over the years and the average American’s perception) and I’d expect the ongoing parts and service support to not be inexpensive, especially as the Metris has supposedly been discontinued in the US for normal retail sale, making it an orphan. The Oshkosh future vehicle is already deemed more than a bit of a boondoggle, a far higher proportion of EV or at least hybrid tech would seem to make far more sense for this defined route and range application. It’s amazing how we can produce such advanced aircraft, spacecraft, war weaponry and fighting machines in this country, yet are still saddled with a shitty modified S-10 to deliver the mail. It’d almost be cute from a nostalgia viewpoint if it weren’t so obviously bad and wasteful on multiple fronts.
Great article subject!
I have a soft spot for the LLV; a living dinosaur and a true long lifer vehicle. I bet lots of them will continue on for years in the hands of independent rural mail delivery contractors, like the old Jeep Dispatcher, unless the USPS decides not to sell them for some reason?
The Metris has been discontinued in the US; 2023 is the last year. It never sold in enough numbers to warrant it. The USPS probably got a killer deal, since sales were so slow.
The IC/EV split on the new Oshkosh vehicles was set at 50-50%, but the new IRA bill has funding to increase the EV percentage. But yes, if ever there was an absolutely perfect application for an EV, it’s this. And yet this new vehicle had to be a compromise design that can be built in both IC and EV variants. Pretty pathetic.
MB sells a version of the Metris/Vito in Europe called the V-Class, a consumer-oriented luxury passenger version with a completely different interior more in line with the smaller Mercedes cars and CUVs, and also like American and Asian-style minivans. I think it would do reasonably well here, enough to make US exports worthwhile when added to the commercial versions.
The passenger version has been here in the US along with the cargo van. I see them occasionally as shuttles for upscale hotels as well as for a local senior transportation service. That version has been dropped for 2023 here as well.
The V-Class has a completely different and much more luxurious interior than the passenger version of the Metris/Vito does. Different dashboard that looks like the one in the C-class sedans, nicer door panels, nicer seats. Aimed at consumers and not as airport shuttles and the like.
There is a very obvious solution to the LLV replacement, but nobody is willing to do it: RHD Ford Transit Connect van, FWD Escape hybrid powertrain. All off the shelf stuff. (I recall the RHD Connect is offered in Australia, Britain, and South Africa.) Done.
It’s too small, one of the main problems with the LLV is that the postal business has shifted to far more packages and far less letter mail over the last two decades, the Connect isn’t much larger if at all. AND it was just announced that it is apparently not going to be offered in the US anymore. Thus some mailroutes are requiring two passes, one for packages and another for letters which is obviously inefficient. The new truck needs to be able to handle a great dimensional volume, yet not be too large or cumbersome to enter/exit or access the stuff.
A hybrid at the very least makes all kinds of sense. An EV makes even greater sense for the vast majority of postal routes.
Get the extended wheelbase for space. They have more cargo room than an LLV, and a lower floor.
I thought the USPS wanted to replace these old trucks with new gasoline powered vehicles. Are they going all electric? I hope not. There’s still a lot of life left in the internal combustion engine.
I’ll miss the LLv’s if for no other reason as already stated, the nasal sound of the exhaust and the sound the sliding doors make.
I live in a 350+ unit condo complex. The main delivery, to the bank of mailboxes, comes in a ProMaster. For specialized, to-the-door deliveries – certified letters and such – they’re still using Chevrolet Venture (and possibly Uplander) cargo vans.
Still have the mail cube as I call them delivering to my house. But I live like 2 miles from the main post office next to the airport, its a BIG facility.
Really they should have bought some RHD Ford Transit vans. I managed for an Amazon delivery contractor back during the pandemic. Those Ford vans were SOLID, we had 10 of them, none were ever out of service. The diesel Sprinters were all garbage, tons of electrical problems, transmission issues, seat belts that broke, drivers doors that the hinges sprang on, these were new vans with less than 30,000 miles on them. Oh and theyd get stuck on wet grass going downhill
LV’s still provide my mail, my current postman will probably retire before those hideous Osh Kosh trucks come online. And, as nwflvr stated, I’ll miss the sounds of the LLV! 🙂
Does the Oshkosh van really need aerodynamic composite headlights? There’s no way in the universe aerodynamics matters with the thing, moving 3mph from mailbox to mailbox, not to mention that 10 foot tall windshield might have a tad more drag. Honestly I think this is the case of unnecessary progress and change for the sake of change. LLV’s have been with us for 35 years and get the job done, they’re the least of the USPS problems, and save for some pops and sputters from their ancient Iron Dukes, they look exactly the same now as they did 30 years ago, even in the rust belt since they have aluminum bodies.
The Oshkosh on the other hand will have chalky yellowed headlights and that lower body black plastic cladding will have turned to a nasty bluish grey in 5 years time. Wasn’t there talk of repowering the existing fleet of LLVs at one time?
If the new Oshkosh trucks are like our neighborhood’s ProMaster, the cladding will be ripped off before it has a chance to turn gray.
A different kind of CC effect – last week the Mrs. and I watched a 1998 movie called The Inspectors – Louis Gossett is a postal inspector trying to find a mail bomber. The LLV had a prominent spot and I laughed, realizing that the movie was almost 25 years old that the LLV had already been out of production for several years even then.
I still get my mail delivered by an LLV almost every day. Almost everywhere in my house I can hear that Iron Duke droning through its torque converter to announce that the mail is here. Or rather that a bill and two pieces of junk mail are here.
One day a sub was driving a Metris, the first one I had seen. I talked with him for a second and remember that he didn’t like it – though I have now forgotten why. I was too bedazzled by the USPS delivering my mail in a Mercedes. Really, I think the Postal Service has passed the point of being able to custom-spec vehicles.
the LLV is one of the very few places to still be able to see 80’s technology plying the streets on a daily basis, in multiple locations. It was designed to carry the mail. Right down to it’s sliding doors, narrow front track and short wheelbase. all to make ingress and egress, and cutting around parked vehicles to catch the next mail box easier. If I’m not mistaken the transmissions were even designed to not shift into 2nd gear till around 25 mph or so for the box to box runs through neighborhoods.
Letter carriers hate the Promasters and the Metris because they are just vans with regular doors and layout, but they like the A/C. The Oshkosh van is a return to the purpose built USPS delivery van.
I was going to note that the LLV doesn’t have air conditioning, airbags, antilock brakes, traction control, backup cameras, TPMS, or any of the electronic safety gizmos found in even 15 year old cars. They really are archaic.
They don’t even have overdrive. (They use the Chevette-sourced TH-180.) Or OBD2.
In town mail delivering is by EV buggy here rural deliveries are mostly older Toyota Hiace vans.
I don’t see these where I live, but some are still in use in Chattanooga, TN. There’s almost no information online about these trucks, which (IIRC) are Ford Explorer based and started showing up in the mid 90s. They’re longer than LLVs, but closely resemble them. I think they have a Cologne 4.0 v6. I Googled several terms trying to find them, but the only way I could find them was by looking at pix which were mislabled as being Grumman LLVs. They must’ve been worse than LLVs since I rarely see them, but not much worse as they’re still in use. Probably consolidated to locations together as Chattanooga is the only place that I see them, but I used to see them here.
I’ve seen this postal van frequently in California, not sure about recently.
They have them out here in Colorado too but it seems like a 25:1 or maybe a 50:1 ratio of the regular LLV relative to these. The bigger wheels and tires are the first thing you notice, then that they are just a little different in every way.
Those are the late-90s Utilimaster(?) “FFV” trucks-they use RHD Ranger running gear and E85-compatible Vulcan V6s. I recall they only built maybe 25-30,000 of them.
It’s an FFV because the post office was experimenting with flex fuel as an alternative to regular gas.
Our mail is delivered in an LLV, sort of. Around here, streets are laid out on a grid and sidewalks are next to the curb, with no grass strip between. Mailboxes are on the other side of the sidewalk, too far to reach from the curb. So, our mailman, who has been delivering our mail since we moved into this house years ago, parks the LLV in the middle of the block, hops out and delivers first packages and then mail to all 20 or so houses on the street, completing the task in about 25-30 min. He then moves on to the next block. When asked, he told me he would prefer an EV for environmental reasons, but would probably be retired before the fleet changes over from IC engines. What he really wanted was better starters on the LLV, which apparently are not up to the task of his frequent starts and stops.
The outward visibility on the Oshkosh looks amazing. It will probably end up saving the lives of a few kids.
Like most things designed and put together by Grumman, from canoes to Apollo Lunar Landers and with many naval aircraft in-between, customers usually got more than their money’s worth.
I can’t see my mailbox from my home, but I can hear when the USPS LLV is in the neighborhood. It’s a comforting sound.
My dog Molly never liked the sound of that old Iron Duke. She would start barking as soon as she heard it coming.
The irony? Now that they are phasing them out, and I see one on my street less and less, she is loosing her hearing. That just figures. It’s like when I worked all the way down in Rockville Maryland for many years while the ICC (MD-200) was in the “planning stages” – more like the NIMBY stages. It was only after I left that company and no longer needed that highway (the Intercounty Connector) that the bulldozers fired up, but I digress….
Back to Molly and the Iron Duke. Our mailman before he retired was someone who loved dogs. Molly and I were in the front yard one day when he pulled up to deliver the mail. She was barking and going ballistic. He said, “Let me try an experiment” and shut the engine off. She stopped barking and he got out to pet her. She loved it. He got back in and started the engine again, and Molly started barking all over again. He then said, “That’s ok Molly, I don’t like the truck either.”
Since he retired, we have had a rotating group of mailpersons. I got to chatting with one of the women that was driving what I thought was some sort of Chrysler product mini-van (I had no idea that this was a Mercedes, but then Chrysler & Mercedes were in bed together at one point). She said she did not like it for many of the same reasons stated above, but did say she liked the AC.
The way our neighborhood deliveries go lately, is that the junk mail (sorry, MAIL) shows up usually in one of these newer vans, but the small packages get delivered at various times (even on Sunday!) by either the good ol’ LLV, or sometimes a ProMaster for larger items.
Like many others here, I’m seeing (and hearing) the LLV less and less.
I’m surprised that everybody is missing the LLV, we’re still using them (Chicago suburbs).
Talk about an excellent application for an EV.
Interesting read dman!
In villages, towns and cities, a bicycle with side bags and a front rack (for another bag) is still the norm in NL. For somewhat longer distances -like between farm houses- they use trikes with a cargo compartment of some sort, switching to electric trikes. Then lots of VW Caddies in the usual white/orange postnl (our national postal service) color scheme.
Parcels are carried and delivered in factory full-size vans, beyond the size of the article’s Ram ProMaster, think LWB/high roof Renault Master and the other usual suspects. Without removing brand names, logos or whatever. Many subcontractors on the job. Also, switching to electric vans more and more (example: Renault Master Z.E.)
If any of the commenters here had ever the opportunity to drive an LLV in snow, ice, wind, or on the highway around higher profile vehicles creating turbulence, every one would feel the same about these cans of garbage as I and thousands of others.
The narrow front track of an S10 mated to the rear frame of a C10 meant they were good for only one thing: pulling into a narrow space against the curb to feed a mailbox or multiple boxes of a MBU.
As for comfort: zero heat, zero cooling, an anemic iron puke, and the handling of a kayak in a windblown squall.
No love from me for these wretched protuberances. I was thankful for the day I was given the opportunity to buy my own rhd wagon to deliver the mail. One was only given that opportunity if your route was over 50 odd miles and became more economically feasible for the Post Office to pay mileage costs.
Oh, those sliding doors ? Quite effective in allowing clouds of dust to enter if ever taken down any gravel roads.
Those LLVs were beyond horrible ….. in every way possible.
The Iron Duke sounds like a Soviet farm tractor. They are beyond bad in snow country. The narrow front track means that the back wheels don’t ride in the path that the front wheels do so each axle cuts its own path through snow. USPS runs snow tires on them year round and uses tire cables in snow. They still suck. They are older than half of the people whose mail is delivered by them. They are probably the one vehicle that uses most of the 14 inch tires made today.
To run opposite to everyone else, I have only seen the Metris in rural route applications. Over the last couple of years, some rural post offices that had likely previously had deliverer supplied / mileage reimbursed vehicles have transitioned to these.
I have yet to see one in any urban or suburban setting, but seeing one covered in dirt and grime from a bulk of the day on gravel roads is a routine sighting.
Didn’t the USPS purchase around 30,000 of these (give or take, it’s been a while since I read about it)?
Our mail still comes in an LLV.
I guess I need to travel more. Had no idea they were using the Metris for a USPS delivery vehicle elsewhere.
Around here, it’s all different vehicles. Last week it was a red Toyota Rav4, today it was the closest thing we have to a regular (a lady in a white 2000s Taurus that is most consistent), along with a string of beaters including a crunchy Toyota Matrix blasting 10 year old rock music.
Nobody has a dedicated RHD vehicle. I’ve seen this one big guy delivering by reaching from the driver seat of a string of small beater cars (Honda Civic, Toyota Yaris, all seemingly on their last leg and usually dissappear quickly, it looks like he plucks them from Pull-a-Part).
Here you go, John, show this to your mailman:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/junkyard/junkyard-engineering-so-you-want-to-deliver-the-mail-for-the-usps-using-your-own-car/
Yep, I think that’s how the Rav4 is set-up.
My regular mail carrier still has an LLV but I often see a metallic red 5th generation Dodge Caravan with the seats folded covering the route, still driven by a uniformed mail carrier. I guess the local post office got it as an executive car and kept it around as a backup. I’ve seen the occasional Metris and last week I saw a white Nissan NV200 with small Postal Service decals, which may mean it was a contractor’s vehicle.
Regular Car Reviews has a good video on Youtube on these. They found someone who bought one privately after its service life. I used to work at a Chevy dealership in ’88 when these were fairly new. we had to outsource our tire and alignment work to a shop on the South end of town. During transport, a coworker and I found a spot where we could lauch these vans airborne… I have lot attendant stories that would rival Paul’s. it would be interesting to swap stories with him. Might even make a good topic here. Car abuse on the job.
Our mail is still delivered by LLV. I won’t miss them when they’re finally retired. The Iron Duke noise is distinctive but hardly endearing, and they tend to be decrepit and smelly (unburned hydrocarbons).
Haven’t seen one of those yet in either Concord or Danville. Still see the LLV.
The first Metris postal van I saw was in the Central Valley. Now we have them on the coast. Your Contra Costa LLV’s are getting squeezed out from both sides 😀
I bet they have decent AC given all the steady heat we have had this summer.
The postal eagle replaces the Mercedes Benz logo on the front due to theft of the logos.