Posted by Todd Wilson on Saturday, April 28, 2007 at 00:20:30 :
We had a discussion a year or so ago about these vans. My friend sold another friend his Postal Van a week ago and now the 2nd friend is getting serious on restoring the truck. A few questions about vans in general.
A "route" van was the offset engine, independant rear suspension variety?
Then there were delivery vans with centered engines and solid centered rear ends.
Was a Postal Van a special order deal for the post office or were they just modified delivery vans?
Going by tags my friends Postal Van it is clearly a 1956 c-4-c 3/4 ton. The van portion was a Fageol unit.
Was this postal van originally a Pilot House pickup/cab-chassis or did Dodge just send some front sheet metal and a rolling frame to Fageol for the van addition? It appears the fenders and front end are pickup truck parts even though the cab itself sits forward.
There is a Post Office tag on it as well and a Delivery Date on it also.
This truck has a centered flathead 6 with what appears to be an automatic transmission and the drivers side is on the right hand side for delivering mail.
I assume this is the Power Flight transmission.
Thanks
Todd
Follow Ups: