The Ford-Utilimaster Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV; originally designated the Carrier Route Vehicle) is an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, p ...
light transport truck model, designed as a
mail truck
A mail truck or post van is a type of delivery vehicle that is used to transport post. Originally horse-drawn, most modern mail trucks are automotive vehicles.
Evolution
In his article, "Right through the Post", John Hollingshead des ...
for the
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...
(USPS), which is its primary user. It was built as a partnership between
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...
, which supplied a stripped-down, right-hand drive
Ford Explorer
The Ford Explorer is a range of Sport utility vehicle, SUVs manufactured by Ford Motor Company since the 1991 model year. The first five-door SUV produced by Ford, the Explorer, was introduced as a replacement for the three-door Ford Bronco II ...
chassis and drivetrain, and
Utilimaster, which built the aluminum body and integrated it with the chassis. The FFV can operate on either
unleaded gasoline or
E85 ethanol
Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...
-blended fuel using the Ford
4.0 L ''Cologne'' OHV OHV may refer to:
* Overhead valve engine
* Off-highway vehicle, aka off-road vehicle
* Off-roading
* California State Parks
California State Parks is the state park system for the U.S. state of California. The system is administered by the C ...
V6 engine
A V6 engine is a six- cylinder piston engine where the cylinders and cylinder blocks share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration.
The first V6 engines were designed and produced independently by Marmon Motor Car Company, ...
.
The FFV is similar in appearance to and has the same purpose as the earlier
Grumman LLV
The Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) is an American light transport truck model designed as a mail truck for the United States Postal Service, which has been its primary user since it first entered service in 1986, 39 years ago. It was also used ...
; it can be distinguished from the LLV by the presence of a cargo-area window behind the street-side sliding door of the FFV.
History

The USPS solicited an offer to bid from Ford and Utilimaster in August 1998 for a fleet order of 10,000 vehicles to replace
Jeep DJ-5 delivery vehicles.
[ At the time, the phased implementation of the ]Energy Policy Act of 1992
The Energy Policy Act of 1992, effective October 24, 1992, (102nd Congress H.R.776.ENR, abbreviated as EPACT92) is a United States government Act of Congress, act. It was passed by United States Congress, Congress and set goals, created mandat ...
required that 75% of federal fleet acquisitions were alternative fuel vehicle
An alternative fuel vehicle is a motor vehicle that runs on alternative fuel rather than traditional petroleum-based fossil fuels such as gasoline, petrodiesel or liquefied petroleum gas (autogas). The term typically refers to internal combustio ...
s in fiscal year 1999.[ The contract was awarded a month later in September 1998; the first batch of 12 prototypes was completed and delivered for inspection within six months, by March 1999, which required Ford to retool its St. Louis Assembly Plant and Utilimaster to design and build a new body assembly plant. The prototypes were tested between March and July, and the feedback provided was incorporated into the final inspection vehicle, delivered on August 30, less than a year after the initial contract award.]
The first production FFV was completed as the "USPS Carrier Route Vehicle" on December 17, 1999.[ The initial contract for 10,000 FFVs was completed in September 2000. The per-unit cost of the FFV in 2001 was ,][ and the final total order was for 21,275 FFVs, delivered in 2000 and 2001. In 2010, the USPS owned 21,137 FFVs, compared to 141,319 LLVs.]
Technical
The right-hand drive
Left-hand traffic (LHT) and right-hand traffic (RHT) are the practices, in bidirectional traffic, of keeping to the left side or to the right side of the road, respectively. They are fundamental to traffic flow, and are sometimes called the ...
Explorer chassis were built at Ford's St. Louis Assembly Plant, including an aluminum dash panel; the completed chassis were shipped to Utilimaster's Wakarusa, Indiana
Wakarusa is a town in Harrison Township, Elkhart County, Indiana, Harrison and Olive Township, Elkhart County, Indiana, Olive townships in Elkhart County, Indiana, Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. The population was 1,758 at the 2010 United ...
plant for final assembly. The ladder frame
A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism.
Until the 1930s, virtually every car had ...
chassis had a C-shaped cross section and six cross-members.[ At long, it is approximately longer than an LLV and has a larger cargo volume.][ Among the new safety features Utilimaster has added a window on the left hand side of the truck for better visibility in these right-hand-drive trucks. ]
The FFV was equipped with a 3:55:1 final drive limited-slip rear axle, powered by the 4.0L ''Cologne'' V6 through a 5-speed automatic transmission. The engine had a peak output of at 4,000 RPM and at 2,750 RPM. It rides on steel wheels and LT195/75R15C tires.[ Anecdotal evidence shows that some FFVs have four-wheel-drive. The FFV has an average observed fuel consumption of , worse than the of the LLVs and slightly better than the of the commercial off-the-shelf ]Mercedes Metris
The Mercedes-Benz Vito is a mid-sized light commercial vehicle (LCV) produced by Mercedes-Benz, available as a panel van, chassis cab, or multi-purpose vehicle (MPV), carrying cargo or up to eight passengers. In the Mercedes-Benz van lineup, it ...
vans that have been used to supplement the fleet.
At the time they were acquired, the only flexible fuel-capable engines were 6-cylinder types, which proved to be heavier and less fuel efficient than the 4-cylinder engines in the LLVs; in addition, E85 has less energy than gasoline, by volume, and it was estimated the USPS used of E85 in fiscal year 2010 at a cost premium of compared to using gasoline vehicles.[ In Fiscal Year 2005, it was estimated that only 1,000 of the FFVs were using E85 regularly, consuming with a 26% decrease in fuel economy.]
References
External links
{{commons category
United States Postal Service
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
Trucks
Ford vehicles