If you’re wondering how much you’re going to have to spend to get an old USPS mail truck, it’s around $17,000.
As the United States Postal Service begins its multi-year roll-out to replace its old, aging fleet of Grumman LLVs with a new Next Generation Delivery Vehicle from Oshkosh, fans of the LLV are itching to get their hands on the nearly 100,000 postal trucks that served our nation for over 30 years.
Unfortunately, as I’ve spelled out in a blog post before, the USPS never planned to sell any of those old LLVs and, for various reasons (mainly safety), will instead junk and scrap every one.
That doesn’t mean a handful (it literally could be a handful) of Grumman LLVs made between 1987-1994 won’t come up for sale, as we’ve found out through Govdeals listings that popped up, many state and local municipalities ordered a couple of LLVs for various reasons.
It’s come to my attention that a 1994 Grumman LLV used by the Tualatin Valley Waster District in Oregon recently sold on a GovDeals auction for $14,800. Add on the $1,850 buyer’s premium plus whatever the sales tax is where the winning bidder lives, and the total price comes out to around $17,000.
The listing for the LLV is linked here, with a gallery of photos and a video posted below.
According to the listing, this LLV has 128,488 miles, which is a little or a lot depending on how you look at it.
This particular LLV was used for meter reading
It says it’s been maintained regularly which, if it’s by a government agency is not saying much, and we’ll have to take their word for it.
For a nearly 30-year-old vehicle, it looks in pretty decent shape with no signs of major damage.
Since this LLV was never owned by the USPS, they have no say in the matter of the sale of this vehicle.
In other words, despite their plans to scrap their LLVs, this one’s completely legal to buy, own, register where you live, and re-sell, too.
Looking at the bidding history, it looks like it was a two-week listing, with bids reaching $7,500 with a day left.
Then, there was a bidding war that popped off in the final minutes that eventually pushed the final bid up to $14,800.
Regardless of how cool and niche it is, you have to keep in the back of your mind that an LLV is essentially a metal box powered by a four-cylinder, 90 HP engine paired to a 3-speed auto.
Are you willing to spend at least $17,000 on a truck that can barely touch 60 MPH on a good day?
If you’ve got the disposable income, by all means, just keep in mind that these were made to start, drive, and stop all day long, not meant for any actual cruising.
As with all LLVs that happens to pop up for sale, the best way to catch one for yourself is to set up an alert (if Govdeals has that future,) or, just keep your ear to the ground for one for sale.
Either a local municipality will offload one by chance or the ones that “made it out” will get resold again, eventually.
These, after all, are going to be sort of an asset/investment.
Would you spend $17,000 on an LLV?
Do you think they can resell it for more?
Let me know your .02 in the comments below.
h/t – @PostalDog94
