Current mail truck by Grumman. Went out of production in 1994.
First finalist by a partnership of a Turkish company and Grumman’s successor company.
Second finalist by Oshkosh and Ford.
Third finalist by Workhorse.
For those of you old enough to remember, the old Jeep mail trucks. 
No wonder postal service is broke.
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Not really, the current Grumman’s have well exceeded their service life and are bleeding the Postal Service in maintenance costs. It is undisputed a new vehicle is needed.
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How does replacing 20+ yr old vehicles have anything to do with being broke?
The fact is, the USPS appears to be in financial trouble because Congress requires them to include retirement liabilities on their account sheet (unlike every other Federal Agency which do not have to carry those benefits in their budgets) and that they have been required to amortize 50 years of that liability in a 20 year period. And then they refuse to let them raise postal rates sufficiently to balance the ledger. If the Post Office was allowed to manage itself on an equal footing with other Agencies, this “going broke” thing would not be an issue.
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That’s a of money for one truck.
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It’s a really nice truck 
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It’s mostly part timers working now anyway and they’re still bleeding money. You get what you pay for.
I’m good with numbers 2 and 3.
USPS delivery folks use their own vehicles out here. Probably still will after the new trucks.
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Number one looks like a damn camper.
Do these new fangled trucks have a reverse gear in the transmission. They are not needed and a waste of money.
For some reason the mail trucks can not back up or drive in reverse when making deliveries.
Why would they back up while making deliveries? 
Same on my end.
Once your out of city limits it’s personal use vehicles.
My buddy’s mom did it for 15 years with the worst vehicle possible. A mid 80s Toyota truck with a 5 speed.
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All the prototypes have reverse gears and it would be ■■■■■■■ stupid not to.
Yes, USPS policy greatly discourages using reverse.
But obviously using reverse is unavoidable.
Down in Mount Airy, many streets are dead end and narrow and the mail truck is obligated to make a three point turn, impossible without using reverse.
So I fully expect all vehicles to come with a reverse gear.
USPS ran a surplus every year till 2007.
but we don’t ask what happened in 2007.
They could always use Ferrari’s solution.
With their new hyper car the transmission doesn’t have a reverse gear. Instead it uses the electric motor for the front drive to “push” the car backwards when you put in reverse.
Ferrari brags that it reduces the weight of the transmission by 15 pounds. All that engineering for 15 pounds.
$35k for a heavy duty 4-wheel drive cargo van is not out of line, particularly when it includes warranty parts and maintenance.
What happened in 2007?
