Royal Air Mail vehicles
Hear this page read aloud
"If the blue pillar boxes are to be abolished, it would
seem that the streamline blue car would no longer be
required".
POST 33/4709
(Left image) Graphic from an Air Mail Service leaflet showing a blue pillar box and the 'wings' logo.
1933 photograph of a Morris Air Mail van leaving the Customs House at Croydon airport. (Right image)
A special fleet of Royal Mail vans was introduced in June
1930 to handle and advertise the new Air Mail service. Special letter boxes
were provided in various locations around the UK. Both these boxes and the new vans
were painted blue.
Eight Morris Minor vans were introduced for collection duties and two 105 cubic feet capacity vans for the conveyance of mails. One of these was supposed to be replaced with a 250 cu ft van in 1935, but the larger van was simply added to the main fleet instead.
A special additional van took the form of an advertising
car. Its streamlined body, designed by Maurice Lambert, was mounted on a standard
15cwt chassis. This streamlined van is shown in this 1935 publicity photograph, below.
Due to the increasing use of the service, the fleet was expanded to 26 Morris Minor vans in 1935, with the three larger vans continuing to support the service and the advertising van simply used for publicity purposes. There were three reserve vans.
Some services were occasionally substituted by red vans on a
strictly temporary basis. The winter of 1935 saw four of the vans become spare
due to a decreased workload.
The following February, the three reserve vans were withdrawn from the service and repainted red to join other duties. Yet a new reserve force was provided in June when another four were withdrawn from regular service.
In August 1938, instructions were issued for all Minor vans to be withdrawn from airmail service; they were repainted red and entered normal service by the end of the year. At the end of 1938, the streamlined van was put on display at the Glasgow Empire exhibition. After this it was returned to London, the special body was removed and replaced with a standard 105 cu ft body.
These ongoing shifts in Air Mail vehicle usage reflect the constant variations in the provision of transport throughout the Post Office.
