MINOR MAIL
For several decades, the General Post Office’s preferred vehicle manufacturer of light and medium was Morris. Probably the most archetypal post-war mailvan is the Morris 50 cu. ft. quarter-ton van, or Morris LCV Van, with over 52,000 supplied to the GPO and the Post Office in total (including telephone engineers’ vans) over a period of 18 years. The GPO christened the LCV the quarter-ton van or Q type.
Civilian prototypes had been on trial since 1948, with the first production models appearing in May 1953, initially being built at Cowley alongside the old Morris series Z Van that they were to replace. The engine was the 803cc A-Series unit that came with the amalgamation of Austin and Morris to form BMC in 1952.
From the start, the requirements of the GPO were accommodated, and the detail specifications of vehicles supplied to it differed from the standard production vans, often very much with an eye to accommodating trade unions, security or reducing costs.
The most obvious divergence from standard was on the early Royal Mail and Post Office Telephones vans, which had rubber front wings with Lucas headlamps mounted on top,
