BRIDGTON — A 1929 Model A mail truck that is believed to have been used in delivering mail in Norway is up for sale.

“It’s quite a mail truck,” said Ray Leavitt, who purchased the truck about 15 years ago from a man in Oxford who told him it was used to deliver mail in Norway.

He remembered the man’s name was Sanborn.

In fact, Dennis Sanborn and his father, Lawrence, recovered the abandoned mail truck in the woods next to Lake Pennesseewassee, according to a 1981 interview with the Sanborns by the Sun Journal.

Longtime owners of Model A cars, the Sanborns said their hobby was antique car restoration. They overhauled the mail truck, building a new wood body, cutting, fitting and dovetailing it to its original state. One side door was missing and that plus the remaining door were also restored. The truck was given a dark olive paint, the U.S. Postal Service color at that time.

The Sanborns said that they believed there were only 900 of these particular models made.

According to information from the Model A Ford Club of America, the USPS had many Model A and AA trucks in their fleet in the Model A era. They purchased the chassis from Ford and had truck body builders construct the body to their specifications.

It appears there may have been as many as 400 built in 1928 with the Model A chassis and as many as 1,000 with the Model AA chassis that year, according to the Postal A Chapter of the Model A Ford Club of America.

Although Dennis Sanborn was unavailable for comment, Leavitt said he believed a Sanborn family member was the former Norway postmaster and therefore knew that the truck was used in the delivery of Norway mail.

Leavitt said the mail truck has been viewed by scores of people who were simply passing by on Route 117 between Bridgton and Harrison. It has caught the eye of potential buyers from as far away as Massachusetts in recent weeks.

The mail truck has one original seat in the front (no passenger seat) and one in the back, which is a replacement Model A seat. It has both an electric start and a crank start, Leavitt said.

On the passenger side back panel is an “Uncle Sam” recruiting poster from World War II, which appears on many of the same trucks that are available for viewing on the Model A Ford Club of America website.

Leavitt said he has heard there were as few as 52 of these types of Model A mail trucks still in existence, he said. There is one in New York and another has been located in Maine, he said.

The mail vans used by the USPS were modified commercial vehicles, according to information from the Model A Ford Club of America and other sources. From June 1929 to March 1932, for example, the Ford Motor Co. sold Model A and Model AA chassis to the Postal Service and the regional garages would then outfit them with mail van bodies (in oak or white ash) painted in the USPS colors.

The mail truck bodies came from five companies: the York-Hoover Body Co. of York, Pa.; the Mifflinburg Body Co. of Mifflinburg, Pa.; the August Schubert Wagon Works of Syracuse, N.Y.; the Metropolitan Body Co. of Bridgeport, Conn.; and the General Motors Truck Co. of Pontiac, Mich.

Leavitt says he remembers these types of mail trucks on the road.

“I remember when I was a kid, they delivered the Sears-Roebuck catalogue. There was a man driving, and two men on the back, which was loaded with catalogues,” he said. On those days each man would grab a bundle of catalogues and deliver to one side of the road.

Leavitt was a walking postman back in the 1970s and 1980s, walking about six miles a day on his route.

Anyone who is interested in the mail truck should call Leavitt at 207-647-2021. The car is located at 212 Harrison Road, Bridgton, but Leavitt said he intends to garage it soon for the winter.

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