The
Grumman Long Life Vehicle or
LLV is a light transport truck designed for and used by the
United States Postal ServiceThe United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution. Within the United States, it is commonly...
.
This is the typical vehicle used by letter carriers for curbside and residential delivery of
mailMail, or post, is a method for transmitting information and tangible objects, wherein written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal...
, replacing the previous standard letter-carrier vehicle, the
Jeep DJ-5The Jeep Dispatcher, or DJ, was a two-wheel-drive variant of the CJ series. Production started in 1955 by Kaiser, which became Kaiser-Jeep in 1963, and in 1970 American Motors purchased Kaiser’s money-losing Jeep operations establishing AM General, a wholly owned subsidiary, that built this model...
. It entered service in 1987. The US Postal Service purchased over 100,000 of these vehicles, the last of them in 1994.
The
Grumman Long Life Vehicle or
LLV is a light transport truck designed for and used by the
United States Postal ServiceThe United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution. Within the United States, it is commonly...
.
This is the typical vehicle used by letter carriers for curbside and residential delivery of
mailMail, or post, is a method for transmitting information and tangible objects, wherein written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal...
, replacing the previous standard letter-carrier vehicle, the
Jeep DJ-5The Jeep Dispatcher, or DJ, was a two-wheel-drive variant of the CJ series. Production started in 1955 by Kaiser, which became Kaiser-Jeep in 1963, and in 1970 American Motors purchased Kaiser’s money-losing Jeep operations establishing AM General, a wholly owned subsidiary, that built this model...
. It entered service in 1987. The US Postal Service purchased over 100,000 of these vehicles, the last of them in 1994. A number were also sold to Canada, Mexico, and several other countries. Like the old postal-service
JeepJeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler. It is the oldest off-road vehicle brand, with Land Rover coming in second. The original vehicle which first appeared as the prototype Bantam BRC became the primary light 4-wheel-drive vehicle of the US Army and allies during the World War II and postwar...
, it features a right-handed driver's position (the opposite of the normal U.S. passenger car left-hand drive) and a large metal tray (able to hold three trays of letter mail) mounted where a passenger seat would normally be. This arrangement positions the driver on the side of the vehicle closest to the
curbA curb or kerb is the edge where a raised pavement/sidewalk/footpath, road median, or road shoulder meets an unraised street or other roadway...
, enabling the carrier to easily grab sorted mail and place it into
mailboxMailbox may refer to:*Letterbox, copper box, or other sturdy material compartment, or slot for incoming postal deliveries*Post box, a physical box for outgoing postal deliveries*Pigeon-hole messagebox, e.g...
es without having to leave the seat. Other notable features are an exceptionally tight
turning radiusThe turning radius or turning circle of a vehicle is the size of the smallest circular turn that the vehicle is capable of making. NOTE that the term turning radius is actually a misnomer. The size of a circle is actually its diameter, not its radius. The less ambiguous term turning circle is...
and a low-geared
transmissionA transmission or gearbox provides speed and torque conversions from a rotating power source to another device using gear ratios, including for a motor vehicle partly because of the limitations of internal combustion engines...
for pulling heavy cargo.
The LLV was specifically designed for the United States Postal Service with Grumman winning a contract for production. The main design points of the vehicle in contract competition were: serviceability, handling in confined areas, and overall economical operation. As its name suggests, the LLV is easily capable of 20 years of operation. The original design lifespan of the LLV specified by the US Postal Service was 24 years, but in 2009 this was extended to 30 years. The body and final assembly is by Grumman, and the chassis is made by General Motors, with the powerplant (2.5L I-4 TBI "
Iron DukeThe Iron Duke was a 2.5 L I4 piston engine...
" and, in later production, GM 2.2L I-4 iron block/aluminum head engine), instrument cluster and front suspension similar to those used in the
Chevrolet S-10The Chevrolet S-10 is a compact pickup truck from the Chevrolet marque of General Motors. When it was first introduced in 1982, the GMC version was known as the S-15 and later renamed the GMC Sonoma. A high-performance version was released in 1991 and given the name of GMC Syclone. The truck was...
pickup. The LLV's average EPA fuel economy is 17 mpg (16 city/18 highway).
In some areas LLVs have been replaced with minivans, which tend to be much more comfortable for postal workers, especially in extreme climates. On some shorter routes, electric trucks with LLV bodies have replaced the original vehicles.
Like other U.S. postal vehicles, they lack license plates, but have a postal service serial number instead.