gearheadgrrrl
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2002
- Location
- Buffalo Ridge (southwest Minnesota)
- TDI
- '15 Golf DSG, '13 JSW DSG surrendered to VW, '03 Golf 2 door manual
KubVan morphed into the LLV postal van...
Speaking as a fugitive from a Postal Service Vehicle Maintainece Facility, IIRC after Grumman Olson built a couple hundred of the VW diesel powered KubVans, they won a Postal Service contract for over 100,000 LLVs (the baby step van that bears a not accidental resemblance to the KubVan. The Postal Service wanted a way bigger box and a lot more weight capacity, so the KubVan was expanded and plopped down on a GM compact pickup chassis with a GM 4cylinder engine. The Post Office wanted even more capacity, so a full size pickup rear axle was kluged on. Three decades later they still soldier on, and with no replacement yet decided on, the Postal Service is even expensively replacing rusted out frames under those eternal aluminum bodies.
The ones Oilhammer commented on with the V6 engine on a 2WD Australian Explorer chassis were a later kluge, They got the overkill V6 because the Fed Fleet demands E85 compatibility and Ford's 4 wasn't rated for E85.
It (maybe) gets worse... The Postal Service is shopping for a replacement for the LLVs, and they want something even bigger, think UPS step van. And while the Postal Service has fantasies about electrification, It'll probably end up with another big gasser engine.
Speaking as a fugitive from a Postal Service Vehicle Maintainece Facility, IIRC after Grumman Olson built a couple hundred of the VW diesel powered KubVans, they won a Postal Service contract for over 100,000 LLVs (the baby step van that bears a not accidental resemblance to the KubVan. The Postal Service wanted a way bigger box and a lot more weight capacity, so the KubVan was expanded and plopped down on a GM compact pickup chassis with a GM 4cylinder engine. The Post Office wanted even more capacity, so a full size pickup rear axle was kluged on. Three decades later they still soldier on, and with no replacement yet decided on, the Postal Service is even expensively replacing rusted out frames under those eternal aluminum bodies.
The ones Oilhammer commented on with the V6 engine on a 2WD Australian Explorer chassis were a later kluge, They got the overkill V6 because the Fed Fleet demands E85 compatibility and Ford's 4 wasn't rated for E85.
It (maybe) gets worse... The Postal Service is shopping for a replacement for the LLVs, and they want something even bigger, think UPS step van. And while the Postal Service has fantasies about electrification, It'll probably end up with another big gasser engine.