Ever wondered what a UPS van would look like if it were a bus instead of a van?

"not for canada - australian in disguise" (for-canada) 02/21/2020 at 18:22 • Filed to: None

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Worry no more! Enter the Glaval Easy On. Yes, it’s really called that. Designed to be an alternative to far less gopping cutaway buses, they didn’t sell many. Most of them are church buses or sold to other private owners, and very few made it to municipal transit agencies. The notable exception being my city’s transit agency, the Edmonton Transit Service, who foolishly bought thirteen of them in 2007.

I say foolishly, because ignoring the HIDEOUS looks, these shitboxes were notoriously unreliable. Faults were incredibly common, and barely saw much action compared to their far more reliable International and Chevrolet-based cutaway colleagues. Not only that, according to pretty much everyone who had the pleasure to ride one, they were absolutely terrible when it came to NVH. They were noisy, uncomfortable, unreliable, and ugly. Pretty much everything you don’t want in a bus.

In the last few years, ETS have retired their entire cutaway and adjacent fleet, replacing them with Chinese “Canadian” Grande West Vicinity midibuses, signalling the end of the Glaval’s reign of terror as a public transit bus .

Buses can be weird man.

Also, as a side note, the UPS van analogy isn’t just based on looks! The Glaval is based on the Workhorse LF72 chassis. Workhorse is currently that weird company trying to make electric vans in the old Lordstown GM plant, but once upon a time they actually made commercial vehicles that were sold to actual buyers and everything. And their main bread and butter were step vans, although they never made any custom vans for UPS to my knowledge.

Chariotoflove > not for canada - australian in disguise 02/21/2020 at 19:10

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Is is bad that I kinda like it?  Sounds from everything you said that it’s an Oppositelock special. We should be able to get one cheap.

not for canada - australian in disguise > Chariotoflove 02/21/2020 at 19:11

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The abject shi tty ness does make it a lot more interesting than most buses of it’s kind.

Chariotoflove > not for canada - australian in disguise 02/21/2020 at 19:19

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The fact that a mass transit bus can be called out for NVH problems tells you that it is truly an exceptional vehicle.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > not for canada - australian in disguise 02/21/2020 at 20:15

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Ah, Edmonton transit.


I don’t miss it.

pip bip - choose Corrour > not for canada - australian in disguise 02/21/2020 at 22:46

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gotta be mor e reliable than anything currently in service being run by Transdev (i know i know, low bar)

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > not for canada - australian in disguise 02/21/2020 at 23:09

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I know all stepvans look alike, but you see some strange names on them sometimes. I saw a Grumman Kurbmaster as a food truck, and though Kurbmaster was the brand.