While spending several weeks in a small town in northwest Oregon helping a family member, I began noticing an unusual number of right-hand-drive vehicles on the roads. For those unfamiliar with the terminology we’ll use in this post, JDM stands for Japanese Domestic Market, RHD is right-hand drive, and USPS is the United States Postal Service. As Curbside Classic has noted before, many rural mail carriers use right-hand-drive vehicles because they make it easier to reach roadside mailboxes and safer to enter and exit the vehicle while working. Some manufacturers, notably Subaru and Jeep, have offered factory-built RHD models for this purpose, while the Postal Service’s familiar urban delivery vehicles are also typically configured with the steering wheel on the right.
Ironically, my sibling doesn’t get home delivery, so one of my tasks was driving to the Post Office every weekday to pick up their mail from a PO Box. On my first visit, I noticed an RHD Subaru Legacy wagon, parked in back; not an unusual sight, though they are getting pretty old here. And later the same day, a RHD Jeep Cherokee XJ. Again, not the first time I’d seen one. But a few days ago, I hit a bonanza in the afternoon –four other RHD delivery vehicles, all lined up. I jumped out to take pictures, and a friendly mail carrier walked up and told me a bit about them.
Prominent in my lead photo is this first-generation 1995-1998 Honda Odyssey, sporting an AWD badge. The white oval sticker advertises a nearby JDM importer. As civilian vehicles, these have become pretty rare in the US, though they’re still more common than the badge-engineered Isuzu Oasis version. As far as sources mention, no AWD variant was sold here.
Next to the Odyssey, the blue van is a Toyota LiteAce Noah, from the late ‘90’s. It too claims to be 4WD, which is probably important for rural delivery in this area of steep hills, unpaved roads, lots of rain and occasional snow.
The Noah was the passenger version of the LiteAce; I won’t even try to guess what inspired that name.
The V badge supposedly stands for the commercial version of the Noah, but that could be off. And what about about the round Japanese sticker? I don’t think that this generation of LiteAce has been featured here at CC, but I’m sure that Tatra87 and Jim Brophy are familiar with them.
At the far right of the lead photo is a more familiar shape for us Americans, a factory RHD Jeep Wrangler Sport. But what was peeking in on the far left?
How’s this for a clue?
And how about this? It should be easy for the non-Americans.
It’s a second-generation Isuzu Bighorn, known in North America as the Trooper (or Acura SLX), and by many other names in other countries.
The last photo from this stop is of a first-generation 1989-1994 Subaru Legacy. The mail carrier told me that this was also a JDM import, but I’m not sure that it isn’t one of the US-made RHD postal vehicles. I looked inside but didn’t think to look at the speedometer to see if it was km/hr or mph.
As I was taking these photos, the mail carrier moved the Jeep over to the other side of the lot, so I took what I thought would be a nice photo to wrap up the CC post I was already planning, with the Wrangler in the background.
But a day later I returned to the Post Office and spotted a few more interesting delivery vehicles. Unfortunately, the most distinctive one was loaded up with mail and pulling away, so a quick through-the-window shot has to suffice:
It’s the narrow body JDM version of the 1996-2000 Toyota Previa van, known as the Estima. Both the first and second generation CRVs were right hand drive, but the Tacoma was a totally stock left hand drive North American version. And 2 wheel drive.
More CC posts on American RHD rural mail vehicles, including some sketchy conversions fortunately absent at this location, here and here. And more about the Toyota Estima here.
Rural postal delivery drivers are a main beneficiary of the 25 year import rules. I’m not exactly confident that the Big Horn’s handling was really improved much by Lotus, but the badge looks impressive.
The 25-year import rule is federal. The decision of whether or not any such vehicle can be registered for road use happens on a state level. There’s an organization called AAMVA that is trying to convince individual states to disallow title and registration for such vehicles, and they’ve (sadly) had some success. Some states have only banned “kei” vehicles, while other states are banning registration of anything that hasn’t been crash tested by NHTSA.
Only time will tell the future of 25+ year old imports in the USA.
Your comment reminded me that neither the Odyssey nor the LiteAce had license plates, but I saw both on local roads doing deliveries. But given the number of JDM vehicles in Oregon, I doubt it’s an issue. At least not yet.
It’s not, in Oregon. I continue to see new arrivals here. As a matter of fact, I saw several JDM vehicles with Oregon plates here back in 2009 or so that were clearly not 25 years old. Not sure how that worked.
For that matter, I shot this Pao back in 2009 that had CA plates on it:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1989-nissan-pao-retro-done-right/
In New Jersey I often see the post office vehicle without any plates, the vehicles have all the post office markings. My guess at least in Jersey they don’t follow the local state laws.
What a random selection of vehicles! The Legacy is a JDM model – the Rural Mail Delivery Wagons had low roofs (and were light blue metallic or white). My parents ordered one before moving to the U.K. They took it on a six week road trip from the mid-west to the west coast and up into BC (I’m pretty sure they needed some miles to qualify for some lower import duty rate as a used car) and got a lot of attention – from amusement to ‘is it legal?’(look at the licence tags) to a woman screaming at them at a gas station that the car shouldn’t be on the road and threatening to call the police.
Just for understanding how it works from very very far away….don’t carriers get official vehicles? Do they have to purchase their own? How does this function? It’s really interesting for me, as in Uruguay there are next to none privately owned or operated public services. We do have UPS or FedEx or local similar firms, but they are couriers, you can mail whatever you want by them but they ar corporate.
Rural mail delivery drivers are not employees of the US Postal service; they are independent contractors and provide their own vehicles. It’s been like this pretty much forever.I remember riding with the Mennonite farmer one summer when he delivered rural mail in his old ’53 Plymouth. I was handy to have along as he didn’t have to reach over to insert the mail into the mailboxes.
Thanks, you’ve just answered the question I was about to ask.
Most mail carriers use office postal service vehicles, but like Paul mentions above, rural areas are an exception.
My in-laws’ house gets mail delivery from rural carriers who use their own vehicles, and it’s always interesting to see what they drive. Their current carrier has a right-hand-drive Jeep Wrangler (sensible because a lot of the route is on remote, gravel roads). Other carriers had Subaru wagons, both RHD and LHD. My favorite was one guy who drove an early 1990s whale Caprice. That was just a few years ago, so the car was pretty old. I talked to the guy once, and he said the car had about 300,000 mi., but he liked it because the bench seat made it easy to slide over to deliver the mail.
Where my sister lives just outside this small town in Oregon, she does not get any US Mail delivery at her house, although it is right on a paved public (county) road. She has to go about 4 miles into town and pick up all mail at the Post Office. The boxes are accessible 7 days a week, 24 hours a day but if she receives a package that won’t fit in the small box, she has to pick it up during business hours Monday – Friday. Amazon’s vans don’t deliver to her house either, but UPS and FedEx do. FedEx in her area uses the GM electric BrightDrop van which was recently discontinued. The challenges of country living.
Never mind Noah – who thought up the name Bighorn?
I like looking up JDM postal-vehicle importers’ websites since their cars are often common-type cars and trucks that I always enjoy seeing. I love the Odyssey here – I didn’t realize they came in 4wd in the home market.
I believe the road sticker on the Noah is some kind of parking permit. Probably not needed in Oregon…
The Isuzu BigHorn’s maximum payload of 250kg (or 550 lbs) seems quite low. I hope that’s in addition to the weight of 5 persons (driver+passengers)
In my part of Ontario the rural Canada Post drivers also use JDM RHD vehicles, most commonly Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4. I don’t remember ever seeing an Odyssey.
I’m also from Canada – here, you can import cars from Japan at 15 years of age, not 25 as in the USA.
About 5 years ago, I caught this Toyota Estima being used by a Canada Post letter carrier in Napanee Ont., and I saw a RHD 1999-2001 Odyssey (the generation that came after the original ’95-98 Odysseys in Japan). There’s lots of Daihatsu vans and mini pickups tooling around Vancouver too – makes sense as that’s the logical port coming from Japan.
Would be fun to drive, except at the dirive-thru!
I’ve seen a few RHD vehicles in Canada too, including this Toyota Estima being used by a Canada Post employee for rural delivery as well. I’ve also seen a 2nd gen JDM Honda Odyssey used as a postal vehicle too. In Canada, they can be imported at 15 years of age, so we see newer ones. Vancouver sees lots of JDM imports, which makes sense being a Pacific coastal city.
Back in the ’90s/early ’00s, in the area between south Arlington, Texas and the town of Mansfield, some rural mail carrier was using a JDM Nissan Leopard to deliver the mail. There used to be a business in that area on Texas highway 157 called BPS, or Bronco Performance Specialties (their business motto was ‘Real Broncos Have Round Headlights!’) and there was a side business called Last Chance Garage, which sold Hot Wheels, diecasts, and old toys. They were on the Leopard’s route. Think Mansfield grew enough in the intervening years to absorb that area, or Arlington had it all along.
Nice ;
I like JDM’s , my son has a red Honda Civic coupe with manual box .
I encourage all here to go look at the many JDM importers, they have a really wide variety of vehicles, passenger as well as commercial .
In the 1990’s I was at a self service junkyard in Pomona, Ca. and they had a red 1979 Chevy Nova right hand drive coupe for sale, it was tired but not crashed or rusty .
-Nate
Our area has a mix of official and rural carriers. Our neighbors across the road are served by a Toyota Estima Luce which is a narrow body Previa , and our substitute mail carrier rocks a Toyota HiAce AWD when the usual mail carrier and their Grumman LLV are off. I’ve also seen an RHD Jeep Cherokee.
Quigley made RHD Chevy Express conversions for a while, with an optional extra deep driver’s window and of course optional 4×4.
Just saw this one – great post. Yes, the small sticker on the rear windshield is police-issued and verifies that your residence has a suitable parking space. Mandatory in most large cities and required to get regular-sized (non-kei) vehicles legally registered.