I was a letter carrier for awhile. Exhausting work, especially driving one of those little tin cars. Hopefully the new ones work well-I give cautious credit to DeJoy for getting them on the streets. The article doesn’t have a picture, so here you go.
Looks like they’ve prioritized function.
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Lol, well put. That is an unfortunate looking vehicle, though I’d be happy to test drive one or use for a job. I’ll bet there are a lot of well designed touches.
Edit: that red reflection in the A pillar mirror is overly distracting.
That is one fugly vehicle. I love it.
The wiki on it, FWIW. Interestingly, it will be available in both gasoline and electric versions, and with both RWD and AWD/4WD versions available. That may make rural mail delivery easier, assuming the USPS springs for the AWD version where it’s needed. This being the federal government, all bets are off on that.
My local PO uses the newer Mercedes delivery vans rather than the old Grumman vans. I’d love to own a Grumman LLV, just for the quirkiness factor.
Exactly. IIRC one of the design requirements was “good visibility out the front” (I’m sure expressed more precisely than that). Thus it has to have this giant windshield and low hood.
And I suspect there were requirements for both cargo volume and maneuverability on city streets, thus a tall vehicle with a short wheelbase.
For some reason it makes me think of the Johnny Cab from Total Recall:
I believe one of the requirements is a worker can stand straight while inside the back. Little things like that make it more comfortable and healthy for the workers.
Yeah, I have the same gut reaction. But you know what other vehicles put function first? Military vehicles. It’s a different kind of beauty.
It’s cute, in an ungainly, bigheaded toddling way.
It is. It looks almost like a cartoon truck to me.
In fact, it really reminds me of how the vehicles are drawn in Bob’s Burgers:
Tina? Tina, you have to turn the wheel. Tina? Tina! Turn the wheel to either side!
TINAA!
Uhhhhhhhhhhh…
It’s called the “Next Generation Delivery Vehicle”. What are they going to call the one that comes after it?
I suppose “DS9 Delivery Vehicle” would satisfy a small segment of the population.
AWD would be useful for rural carriers, especially in the northern areas during winter. But many/most of them are contract carriers, who use their own vehicles rather than USPS trucks.
UPS also has a new droop nose. I have seen one and I think it was this model:
It makes sense in retrospect, but it had never occurred to me that the post office had their own breakdown vehicles to get the little mail cars off of the road.
And I think it looks like Dr. Finkelstein:
I know two older USPS delivery folks and they are both happy to get rid of the old LLVs. They complain they are hot as shit, and well past end of life so those old sliding doors take effort to open and close. I doubt they care about the looks if they are more functional.
Speaking of military, Wiki tells me the manufacturer of this knew vehicle is Oshkosh Defense.
One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “It’s so ugly, it’s cute”.
I think they look great. You can literally see the design requirements and functional priorities.