As you may be aware, we’re currently in the waning days of the most-common vehicle you’re likely to see that’s not from a company known for building cars: the Common North American Mail Truck, also known as the We’ve already seen the venerable LLV begin to be replaced by before the still-undecided, all-new replacement shows up. So, before it’s gone, here’s a fun little LLV Easter egg you can use to impress almost nobody!

While some LLV arcana I already knew (it’s based on a Chevy S10 pickup with an Iron Duke engine, has no a/c, that kind of thing) and there are some details my very own mail carrier told me that he prefers to the Metris (the LLV has a passenger-seat area load tray, the Metris does not; also, The Metris is less roomy in the rear to stand and move in) more of these I learned from this little interesting post over at, unsurprisingly,

That’s where I learned in these drivable aluminum EZ-Bake ovens in the summer, including soaking shirts in rivers, shoving ice packs down pants, , and my favorite one, a mail carrier who had a friendly meat packing plant en route that let him park his LLV in the giant freezer during his lunch break.

OK, but here’s the fun easy Easter egg: You know how none of these postal trucks have a license plate, but instead a number, that you can see above the windshield?

Well, the first digit of that number tells you how old the LLV is! The first digit will be be either a 7,8,9,0, 1, 2, 3, or 4, corresponding to the years 1987 to 1994, when the LLVs were built.

So, if you see one with a 7, you know that’s one of the oldest, a 33 year-old truck from 1987. If you see one with a 4, you know it’s a comparative baby, delivering the mail for only 26 years.

This random LLV I found in a Deseret News article? Well, I know it’s a healthy 30 years old, because that leading 0 tells me it was built in 1990.

One of the trucks from the Wikipedia article? It’s from 1992.

I’m not exactly sure why, but I liked knowing that little bit of information. It makes me feel like I’m getting a peek into how the hidden mechanisms of the world work, and even better, I can finally know if my mail carriers are telling me the truth about how old their trucks are.

Finally.