American Learns About the Mercedes UNIMOG
Vložit
- čas přidán 7. 11. 2022
- original - - • UNIMOG: The Massive Me...
TIP JAR - - - - - SuperThanks Button :)
This will help improve the channel greatly, New webcam for better videos, Wheel for the hotlaps, or you can just buy me a cold drink 😎 I APPRECIATE YOU
Send us Stuff!! 😋 IWrocker 5225 Harrison Ave PO box # 6145
Rockford, IL 61125
Discord - - IWrocker CZcams - - / discord
LIKE and Subscribe! Join One of the BEST & wholesome Communties on CZcams, with tons of Variety in content for You to Enjoy.
*TimTam collection Record Holder
*Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS - Auta a dopravní prostředky
In the early 70:th, I was a volunteer firefighter in Sweden. We had a Unimog. It was unbelievable how this Unimog could go throw all terrain.
we still have 3 unimogs in our city with the volunteer fire services here in my german city xD
We also got these as fire trucks in the uk aswell
Yes german firefighters still use this nice and robust unimogs and many other oldtimer...😎
almost every german department had a unimog at least once
When I was like 16 or 15 I went to a birthday party with some other friends. We could not find the place, so we just asked some old grandpa we found working in his backyard.
It being the small countryside village it was, he immediately knew the family we were talking about und asked if he should simply take us there. So he went into his barn and came out with this huge Unimog, we got in and he drove us there.
Man, I love the german countryside
Little sidenote: i slept there and planned to take the bus home the next morning. When the bus arrived, I saw smoke coming from one of the wheels, so I told the driver. Turns out the bus was freakin burning.
Was a fun weekend
@@Avvisoful Probably a brake that got stuck, it creates a lot of heat that will eventually burn the rubber of the tires, and once they're burning your car is as good as trash. Be advised when you stop someone for that, don't pour water on it - apparently it can warp/bend/crack the break disk or something. Once stopped a young lady in a Opel Corsa, and didnt already know that. She cooled the break but went through a liter of water, and it was still piping. Would've cooked her car on the way home, surely.
@@Avvisoful
Dual wheels can have one tyre run flat...
and after it has run flat for a while there is enough heat built up from the flexing for the rubber to catch fire.
Unless the driver uses his mirrors and spots the extra smoke......the other tyre starts burning....then the rest of the bus.
Unimogs are common as snowplows, tow trucks, road recovery vehicles etc here in northern Sweden, they are basically lifesavers in the countryside where normal trucks struggle during the winter.
When you're stuck in a ditch thanks to black ice and you hear that diesel chugging down the road you know help is near.
❤ Thank you from a german.
Here in Germany towns and citys use the UNIMOG as snowplows, for cutting grass next to the roads and other stuff that needs to be done.
Also fire brigades use it as special veicle in case of forest fires due to the great off road capabilities.
Exactly, and that way I knew them from my childhood days on, a pretty common piece of technology for a German. And of course as a child iI also found this was one of the coolest things driving around ;-)
You see them sometimes even on the Autobahn trimming bushes/grass at the rails on the side.
Yeah there are pretty common maintenance vehicles here in Germany but it smaller East German cousin the Multicar is also a great workhorse not so much off road but insane robust and well the smaller size is its big strength beside the 6 tonns carrying capacity it is often used like the Unimog but it fits sidewalks perfectly fine /isn't too wide or long it is just perfect for comunal services
In Europe you can see them alot . In major cities you can see them often as breakdown recovery/repair vehicels for Busses, metros and tramcars.
In Industrial areas mostly as railway shunters.
they are so good mobile offroad workbenches.
You can put any type of machinery ontop of it.
In the Netherlands they have become almost extinct as motorway maintenance vehicels.
Those are now XXL tractors who can carry even longer arms with cleaners/cutters.
And the Unimog is the go to truck for everything to do whit forest or hevy timber/lumber work.
The option to shift the steering wheel position from left to right has a really practical reason. For example, you are using the Unimog to sweep gutters at the side of the road. Then it can be better to sit on the right side of the vehicle, so you have a better view on what you are doing. And than switch it back to the left side during normal driving.
But this option came with a newer model,the older ones don't have it.
@@sven471111 That's right.
All it takes there is a mirror on the right front corner angled down so that you can see the right-side wheels and curb from the left -side driver's position. This how the bus driver determines how far they are from the curb when they stop to pick you up...
@@kevincrosby1760 Many of the elder Italian busses and lorries mainly used on narrow mountain roads do have RHD steering as well, because it actually does make a huge difference to see it, or to see it mirrored.
@@kevincrosby1760
A bus stops 5% of the day at a bus stop. 95% of the time it's just driving in regular traffic. Then a mirror will indeed be sufficient.
When you have to sweep the gutters all day long. you are driving 95% of the time close to the curb and only 5% in regular driving situations. In that situation, it's better to just sit at the right hand of the vehicle than to watch it via a mirror. Also. You have to look at what the attachment you are using is doing.
'you can do anything with it' But just almost. As one Mercedes dealer said "though our continuous pleas they have been unable to mount wings on it, otherwise it's just fine"
Australian train driver (that's railroad engineer to you). We had a Unimog at the last place I worked. Outside of railways, what really sets them apart from everything else is their portal axles. In off-road world, either you have them or you don't and everyone else don't. It doesn't a PTO, it has three. Front, rear, and one side.
lol 🤣🤣
I was in german army in 1998. We had 2 of them in the unit as a mobile field kitchen. This bad boy crowls to us in bavarian mountains with the famous( in German army) "Gulasch Kanone"!
The name Unimog is pronounced [ˈʊnɪmɔk], and an acronym for the German "UNIversal-MOtor-Gerät", Gerät being the German word for a piece of equipment (also in the sense of device, machine, instrument, gear, apparatus). It was created by German engineer Hans Zabel, who made the note Universal-Motor-Gerät on one of the technical drawings for the Unimog. Later, the Universal-Motor-Gerät was shortened to the acronym Unimog. On 20 November 1946, the name Unimog was officially unveiled. Since 1952, Unimog has been a brand of Daimler Truck.
Unimog was more than just a brand of Mercedes, they were their own independent division for a long time basically just using some dealers and the Mercedes name up until around the 90s shen they become more integrated with Mercedes.
Translation of "UniversalMotorGeraet" is "Universal Motor Device".
There's not much that it can't be used for...
Hi, my son and i are from the Netherlands and own an '87 Unimog 406. It is a medium size Unimog. With its 5,7 l (348 cubic inch)straight six diesel it produces only 84 hp en weighs approx. 4000 kg (8800 lbs). It took us almost 2 years to rebuild the truck and now it looks amazing. It is true the parts are sometimes very expensive. We use the truck just for fun driving. But it is so much fun driving this old-school truck
+ysbranddd.... The Netherlands are the perfect playground for Unimogs - especially because its climbing abilities ... ;-)
We had these unimogs in our company during my time in the German army. They managed extremely heavy terrain for example the deep muddy tracks of our Leopard tanks filled with water on the training areas. The water came up to the door but these things crawled through that shit like nothing. Loved it!!
And if the water comes in through the door, you pull the plug afterwards and let it out...
We had an old one in the workshop to move trailers. As a driver you sit with your knees against your ears, next to you is the cooling water tank and the engine and behind it a console with levers for the various shift, reduction, change-over, power take-off and locking gears and not one lever is labeled.
We had an old one with a petrol engine in the German army for a short time, but then got a newer model with a diesel engine. It was a lot better. When driving through water over 1.20 m, you had to close the windows and switch the fan to 4. It had no cabin ventilation and so the overpressure could prevent water from penetrating. Headlights, axles and gears were also charged with compressed air when driving off-road.
They even told tankers not to drive where a Unimog got stuck.
The motor wasn't even very strong, but due to the many gear reductions, it had such a torque on the wheels that it screwed through everywhere in slow motion.
The petrol one that you had in the German army was the unimog 404, first released in the mid 50s with 80 hp. Definitely underpowered but geared like a tractor. The replacement you mentioned sounds like a sbu series (also known as the square cans mogs) unimog, much bigger engine, much bigger vehicle in general and a lot more capable (it had a 150 hp minimum engine). The 404 was a 4.5 ton truck where as the sbu's were 10 ton trucks often derated to 7.5 ton to not require a heavy truck license.
The trick is the many gears. Last one I had was a light Mini-MOG with the 2.9 liter Van engine - it was a beast in harsh conditions, but You had to pick from 28 gears all in all, shifted with three different levers plus a fourth one to change direction from reverse to forward and back, and the three different PTOs for hydraulic and winch were extra geared ... we put a crane and wide feet on it, a central winch and a highrise frontloader with a man-cage or forks and had even place left to put a slightly changed backhoe at the end - crane or backhoe only though, with hydraulics that needed changing from one to the other; backhoe away, loggers winch or loggers splitter or loggers big blade saw on, I even had a big sump pump (firefighter version) and a three-blade plough the chap I got it from gave me with it .... That thing was worth four or fife other machines and had just the smallish, fairly economic engine in it. Marvellous piece of machinery. Took about half a day to sell (for my price of course) when I retired.
Sitting with your knees against your ears is by design, because that's all the noise insulation that Mercedes offers on the 'mog.
I was in the Australian army for many years, in field force transport so, drove mog's a lot. Eight gears forwards and backwards, drive through and or over anything and, I even had a 12 volt fridge for the snack's. There was a dual cab variant ordered from Merc for "one transport squadron/Australian army" to be used in the Variety club's charity bash in the eighties or maybe a bit earlier in the mid to late seventies.
Same here, mostly in the Dutch forces, lots of good memories. Almost impossible to get them stuck. However, there was this guy, a sgt., who took a 4x4 Landrover to get a VW combi out of the mud he got it stuck in. He got the LR stuck too. Then he completely burried the Unimog he took to get the VW and the LR out. Then he took another Uni to get all three out. He burried that one too. Eventually it took the Uni of the firedept. and a smarter operator to winch all of them out of the bog. That's how I know there are people that can't drive ANYTHING! Not even a UNIMOG 😁
It was a 4 speed with an automaticly actuated splitter between 4 and 5. There is a version that also splits on each gear = 16 "gears", plus has a crawler split = 32 "gears" and it's 6x6.
I was Army Engineers 😀
@@arturama8581 That sgt, he sounds like the embodiment of Sunk Cost 😄
@@arturama8581 A true story, We had a sgt whom transfered to field force from admin, an accountant no less. He had to be coded for all of the vehicles we used. Here is the radio message we got from his instructor. Come in "sunray", over. This is sunray, over. "Sergent Rayner rolled the Rover over, over"!! Hah hah !! So funny, the man was a walked disaster area.
I have owned Unimog's for years, started out with a 404, then a 406 and ended up with a U1600(427), extremely versatile with a huge range of options, likewise some of the places I have worked also have had Unimog's, have used my one for agricultural, forestry\arboriculture, land access like repairing remote tracks and getting equipment to the tops of hills, along with winter maintenance with snowplough and blower for the local county council (my avatar image is my U1600 taken on the Sarn Helen roman road in the Brecon Beacons National Park while doing track maintenance)
Many years ago I was hiking in the Austrian Alps, high above the cable car station. Along with the sound of cowbells was a diesel turning over. Sure enough a Unimog, farmer dropping off feed for the cows.
The same one probably goes still up there 😁
You can buy used ex-army Unimogs for about $45,000 AU. They can be registered and people make amazing go-anywhere campers out of them.
i didn't know Astronomical Unit's where a currency.
My grandpa had a Christmas tree farm here in Belgium, he used to have a Unimog there, it’s an insane vehicle, but one of the most notable things I remember, is the seating position, it was like sitting on the ground with your legs straight in front of you
Yeah the floor is so high above the ground, they made it so you could sit like in a normal truck the cab would be even higher, and thus more top heavy.
@@kuehlschrank4389 indeed, it’s just such a silly seating position I’ll never forget it
@@jonahfastre It is everything but ergonomic, but You can _drive_ in it where You want .... 😁
The South African Buffel APC was based on the Unimog 404. It had a separate gear lever for revers and another one to select hi/ low range, that gave you basically 8 gears forward and 8 in reverse. If you really want one import army surplus from SA or Australia. By the way it will do nearly 70 M/h on pav4ed roads and 55 on level unpaved, Yes we did it in the Buffel that had 8 metric tons of armor plating high over the chassis due to the V shape body for mine protection.
'n Buffel het my lewe gered. Dit was monsters op hulle tyd.
Ah, yes. I just made a comment about this earlier, but I couldn't remember all the details. Thanks for clarifying!
I was already wondering about the military applications... from German Dingo to Marine Corps / Socom MRAP to said Buffel APC there are several (and certainly more than I know of)
I worked on a farm decades ago and one of the farmers had a big yellow Unimog, it was a beast. This thing was pulling trailers out of muddy fields when all the other tractors were struggling.
In Bettmeralp, Switzerland, they use an Unimog for waste collection. The village isn't connected to the road network and can only be reached on foot or by cableway, so they strap the Unimog underneath it (for safety reasons nobody stays in the Unimog or cableway)
In 8th grade (ca 1990) we went on 4 day field trip to visit the factory where these things are build in Gaggenau Germany.
That was quite impressive
I've worked with one in the early 00s. A 404 from some time in the 70s. Absolutely amazing for getting around undeveloped land or the woods. Also almost indestructable, if you don't count the glass. And we used it as waste oil disposal. Those old precombustion diesels eat just about everything that has the consistency of oil, from frier fat to mashine gearbox oil. Just run it through some filter cloth and chug it in, though in winter you kinda want diesel. A block of solid frozen frier fat is not conducive to operation. You also don't need a radio. While you are driving you will not hear it, after you can't.
I live in kinda rural germany, not quite the boonies, but they are just beyond the hill back there. They are quite ubiquitous around here. Every farmer, wood worker and construction company has at least one of them. They are like offroad Lego. Just get one and then pick the attachments you need for the job. And where thy can't go, you don't have any business being anyway ^^
Mercedes Unimog is very famous in Germany or in the German-speaking area and is almost a legend. I knew this thing already as a child for over 40 years!
Unimog is an acronym for (Universal-Motor-Gerät) universal motorized vehicle. In my immediate vicinity (in Baden-Württemberg / Black Forest) there is even a small Unimog museum!
And at the Unimog museum there is an obstacle course where you can have a ride.
@@bigbar4be Thanks, didn't know that! 😉
They are legendary in the netherlands as well. There is nothing an unimog can't do.
Not vehicle. The correct translation for Gerät is device, item or appliance.
In 1989 we still used Moggy in the danish army. Nothing could come close to replacing it. It pulled APC and tank alike clean out when all else fails. (And it really is fun to drive)
My uncle owns an older Unimog and loves it. It's fairly low tech and he's been working on it and modifying it and basically has bought, build and modified a number of attachments and modules he can swap out at will and do anything around the family property that would normally require a truck, a tractor, a combine harvester, a forklift, an excavator or a wheel loader. It's such a workhorse.
Hey Ian. We have a few in Australia. When I was working for Telstra (telehone company) back in the early 2000's, one of my colleagues drove 1 for the company. He said it would go just about anywhere, virtually unstoppable & couldn't get done for speeding on the highway as top speed was only 50 mph (80kph). 2 days ago, I saw 1 here in my home town, brought in by the SES (State Emergency Service) due to the river being in flood.
They should have ordered the US Version with the "long" gearbox, still no speeding in Australia, but it can go around 100km/h (just make sure you don't have to fill the tank on your own money ;-)
Unimogs are insane. I used to live next to a dike near Hamburg, where the local farmers had a Unimog attachment for mowing both faces of the dike all at once from the road on top of it. Also, I can't remember where, but I saw a graphic somewhere of what you need from a vehicle and where it should go and then all different varieties of powered vehicle below, and the Unimog checked all boxes except flying (there even were several amphibious versions).
The Unimog fills the Pickup-Sized gap in the European car mix.
Awesome vehicles. You can basically bolt anything, any kind of equipment to them and use them for pretty much anything. Our National Railway Company as well as some local public transport companies have hydraulics-driven rail axels installed on them on the front and the back. This way they can use them on tram lines and railway tracks as well as a normal truck since the axels are liftable. On the affordability, these hold their value insanely well. I have seen Unimog's here that are 20-30 years old and still hold 50-70% of their original asking price, which wasn't low to begin with.
Indeed, some metro/underground operators use them to pull metro trains out of the tunnels in case of a power failure.
I was in the "THW" (Technisches Hilfswerk), something like a voluntarily civil protection in Germany and we had a Unimog which could do a fording of 1,2 meters / 4 foot easily. Love that Truck.
After viewing your clip I remembered we had a few of these incredible Mogs as support in our tank artillery battalion in the german army. Two were build in the late 60th and three in the early 80th. All of them reliable as hell.
I just checked how much a used one costs here in Germany. I was suprised that a 40 year old one in a good condition costs 20.000 - 30.000€.
Unimogs are very desirable. They always have been crazy expensive used.
That's what happens if it can do everything and everyone has a use for them.
You can get 'em for 10 k in repairable, not running/not driving condition. It gets even cheaper with parts missing, but You would need two or three of those to get one ready and driving for a reasonable price - so yes, it might actually be the range You gotta put aside for a driving/working one. Plus You gotta count in all the accessories You might still want/need, from a crane to winches to frontloader or backhoe ... it is a workhorse after all. But look at what a working tractor, a working excavator, a working loader or a working 4X4 or 6x6 lorry costs - the UniMoGs aren't pricey in comparison.
Junge... Du weisst doch, dass Qualität ihren Preis hat. Wenn du dir heute nen neuen Kobold von Vorwerk kaufst, dann wird's auch 4- stellig. Aber das Ding wird die nächsten 30- 40 Jahre seinen Job machen.Inklusive der gesicherten Ersatzteilbeschaffung in diesem Zeitraum...
But it only went up in the last years. In 2011 I was looking around and the 12t Version was selling as Army Surplus with just 60000km for around 12000EUR in reasonable condition.
I'm UK based and have loved unimogs since finding out about them as a car mad kid... unimogs are used in the UK, but aren't exactly common... all I can say is the experience of coming around a single track, blind bend, in the dusk, driving a na MX5 to find a unimog hauling farm equipment heading straight at you is a heart stopping experience that stays with you!
Ah hell yeah. I’ve been around unimogs for years at work. We clear trees back from power lines with them here in the UK. My boss had a fleet of about 30 at one point, all with elevated platforms on the back. I’m no longer in the cutting side of things but I use to love blasting around the English countryside in a mog.
Don’t know if it was just that one model in the video, but I’m sure I’ve see our mogs hit 70-80mph.
Yea most of them can go faster than 55 mph, it's just that the truck speed limit in germany is 80kph or 55 mph so they only list that as the top speed. Here in the US the bigger ones can be seen holding 65/70 properly set up, with some holding a bit higher with some power upgrades.
As a german I see quite a few of these here on the streets pulling smaller trailers.
see them quite often here in Berlin with scaffolding trailers
unimogs been in use for over 70 years. even used as response vehicles in some cities with narrow old streets.
we still have them in use for fire and rescue , heavy duty wreckers etc. crazy little machines.
if you can think of a attachment they made it for them. even used on rails to pull train carts etc.
My dad collects Unimog's, he has 5 of them and we basically grew up with them. They are great ! Currently he is restoring another interesting Mercedes vehicle, a MB Trac 1500 ... his first retirement project.
often see unimogs on rallys doing the recoverys in the uk as they can go anywhere and drag anything from anywhere always fun to see the mog come along towing like 7 cars behind it
We also used them in the Swiss army until the 90s. Those models were so old that the exhaust fumes were a danger, so we couldn't carry troops without having a fully open side even in winter. After freezing my ass numerous times, I can't say I have such good memories of those trucks. 😁
Same for the driver. You would get sleepy in a long lasting convoy
Been on one of these, while i was filming some lumberjacks. Well, it went straight uphill, dragging 2 large chained logs, as well as opening a new road. for the other vehicles to follow. It was just insane. These things feel like breaking the rules of nature.
i usedto work for mercedes comercial vehicles and we built unimogs to whatever the customer wanted mostly for utility and telecom companies hiabs and trucks for the army 💪 great job i loved it and a very versatile platform 😊
I got into work with BOSCH in 1977, and in 1979 I visited Bosch Development near Stuttgart. It was here riding the bus to work where I first saw UNIMOG vehicles around most farms and some in other roles including village Fire Brigade. Being into 4WD since late 1960s I was enthused by a versatile 4x4 vehicle with lots of capabilities. As it turned out there were a couple of Unimogs at work used for injection and electronic ignition development, so I had chance to get into one for a close look oh the drool over its features. Sadly at the time only dreams.
At start of 1980s I had to undertake training for injection system application work. During a 5 month working stint I got another chance for closeup Unimog experience. It almost happened, I had opportunity to buy a second hand, development Unimog for a mere $10,000, which was way less than a new price but the vehicle was low mileage around 16,000km from memory, and a mere two years old it was superseded by design changes but matched normal sold types. Sadly I procrastinated so it was sold to another engineer whose family had a small farm.
As it turned out, I was very fortunate, the Unimog had never been built in Right Hand drive version, which I needed for Australia. As Left Hand Drive model I could not have driven much or long term in Australia except under limited special permit. As no parts ever were designed to allow Right Hand version , a conversion using standard parts was impossible, and custom rebuild virtually impossible or at least SUPER expensive. From memory three Unimogs were imported for a deep expedition to central Australia to search for the 'mythical' lost Lasseter's Gold Reef. These had a two year permit for the expedition.
Not until Australian Army contracted for Mercedes to supply Right Hand Drive vehicles for the army did a redesigned version become available. From memory near end 1980s. To add to the prior 6WD army landrovers used prior to getting these bigger tougher Unimogs.
I had opportunity on one summer Red Cross Canoe marathon event to use my Nissan Patrol with Warn Electric winch to unbogg an Army Unimog on a sandy river bank flat. UNIMOG bogged? Yes bogged, which realistically is virtually IMPOSSIBLE. It took a less than brilliant young army driver to actually bury one in loose sand. Not the only vehicle getting bogged that day I would have winched and towed over fifteen vehicles out including a tow truck that someone called saying he did not think I could help, so I got him and the tow truck out.
Anyhow this young army driver first tried only two wheel drive getting rear two wheels dug in. Then in 4WD rather than slow low range gears to crawl free left it in high range and second or even third gear reving engine hard, dropped the clutch spinning all four wheels, and progressively on several such spinning efforts dug rear in deeper and front now also dug in. He argued with fellow army guys, that that was the way to get out, not slow low gear crawl. By the time his senior order him out of the truck even slow crawl did not help just churning loose sand now up to wheel gear hubs in sand. Now those wheels are BIG , must be over 1m outer diameter so the wheels would have been over 1/2m dug in. I used my winch and gave needed pull as the new driver of Unimog slowly rolled his wheels and the Unimog was free in under a minute after hooking up. It then managed to crawl off the sand slowly. Still a very impressive vehicle which driven properly can do more than most vehicles of its size.
While ex Army Unimogs have become available, and far cheaper than new price, which is still daunting for us normal humans the continued cost of maintenance and spares remains painful. So likely never to own one. It is also large as far as parking space in suburban home yards or garage (height as well as width).
A bit more feasible is a vehicle sort of in Unimog style, still in upper cost range, that is getting good reviews and kind of popular, is a IVECO model that us mere mortals could afford. It also has massive capability beyond the typical 4x4 and small to medium pickup trucks. It is worth following up, sorry Right now can not even state the model name.. just it is by IVECO.
I used it in the Portuguese army and my father used it too. It´s a lot of fun and does the job quite amazingly.
Jorge, numa vez, no COE de Lamego, uma berliet bloqueou as rodas. Solução, atrelar a berliet a um unimog! O unimog ARRASTOU a berliet com as rodas bloquedas!!!
@@zerique6360 nada como o belo do Unimog. 💪💪
It's a strange phenomenon within engineering, but when a particular vehicle is designed & built using a pure 'Function Over Form' concept', they invariably turn out looking fantastic as well.
I've loved the Unimog for decades.
Loved Mogs from a very young age. The most ubiquitous at the time were orange communal 406's. I find the 404 very pleasant to look at, with that oval grille and round headlights. Not so sure about the nineties versions with the high windscreen. I acknowledge that looking out of it was considered more important than looking at it in real life, but as a model-maker and collector, my priorities are different.
I agree that the original machines looked particularly cool even though they were not designed to (or maybe even BECAUSE they weren't). Same is true for the original Willys Jeep and The Land Rover Series I.
Outside of Germany, the first country to manufacture the Unimog was Argentina in the 1960s. The Argentine army continues to use them. As a kid I always dreamed of having one (they can be bought from those discharged from the army)
I can't believe those are not known in the states! I saw them while living in Chile, and in Europe they are very popular as well, I really thought this was a "universal" (got it? nice reference eh!) vehicle found anywhere in the world.
The change of steering column side is because sometimes you do have to work primarily on the right side, sometimes on the left side, so it only makes sense if you can just choose whatever. It's not nice, it is built to perform easy repairs and to allow it to adapt to whatever work environment.
My brother-in-law is a big fan of Unimogs. He had quite a few during the last years, his recent one is the 406 model. He invited me to a ride through the woods this summer and it was a blast. I am more of a sports car guy, but after this I seriously considered to get one myself. Pure fun.
In my home country Austria, the Unimog is mainly available from road maintenance depots and fire brigades. Some small village fire brigades still use Unimogs that are 60 years or older! Only rarely, but still.
They have a 'rocker' mode that reverses the transmission without having to change gear. It makes getting out of holes easy - you can build up momentum just rocking back and forth until you bump out. My Series Land Rover had PTO front and rear - had a winch on the front and could attach huge grass cutters on the back. The newer models don't have them anymore and my Nissan Safari gearbox doesn't have a PTO - would love a PTO rear recovery winch, but will have to be more circumspect! Great vid - Unimogs are the dog's bollocks of off-road for sure. Expensive to own and run, but reliable and more capable than anything else.
I loved seeing them when I lived in Germany. I SO wanted to bring one home... Such a shame they are not sold here.
We have just a few of these in the Swedish military. I was driving the old Scania SBAT 11 during my service (we were cleaning them), when I saw one of those newer UNIMOG's pull up and it looked absolutely badass!
I did my national service as a conscript in the Bundeswehr in 1988 as a mechanic, we had both the old ones and the newer ones. The new one was much more comfortable but the old oone with the petrol engine hat a very nice feature. Turning the key of and on while driving made a big bang, wich we had fun with....until one day my mate let the key in the off-position too long and after the BANG the complete exhaust left "The Mog" and fell to the road.
I remember when I was in The German army in 1979/80 some guy got kind of famous because he got stuck with the Unimog he drove over a field. This was something unheard of. But to his defence I should say that it was a filed with a lot of clay in the soil after a heavy rain and he was also pulling a loaded trailer. And he tried to perpendicular cross the very deep tracks left by another truck in the soft soil. Because of the short wheel base which almost perfectly matched the width of the tracks he got into those tracks with all four wheels at the same moment and instead of using power carefully he steped on the gas like he wanted to win the next indy 500. All four wheels started spinning and he dug in instantly. Took him and his codriver some time to dig a short ramp in front of the wheels and two of those sand rails to get out of the holes.
The gearbox of the Unimog 404S was able to drive PTO front and back, but also a PTO to the right hand side. All optional, with a bolt on modular approach. It could also bolt on a special crawler gear option, to the bottom of the gearbox. In addition to that, a belt driven compressor could be mounted for air driven attachments or trailer breaks. Great stuff. :)
The newer ones have even more options: PTO, air and hydraulics!
And yes, the stock Unimog is extremely capable off-road, if you ever have the chance to drive one, you should. I've driven these on and off-road, it's great fun.
I drove a 404 for a while in the Danish Army. It certainly was very capable as an off-road vehicle but other than that it was actually not very comfortable. The driving position was a little weird because the seat was low to the floor. It was also noisy, drafty and when driving on paved roads it tended to rock along because of the huge tires and the portal axles making you a little seasick.
Off-road though? Awesome fun.
Has a reverse-able gear box(not sure of the technical term) so can go as fast backwards as forward! 8 gears! Drove them back in my army days, they literally go anywhere.
I just looked there is one for sale in sweden at 27222,84 dollars from 1980 with the following info:
Mercedes Unimog 1000 1980 .Excellent condition.Crane Hiab .Snow plow attachment with lifting piston. Winch on crane arm. PTO front.
Driven 168000km
Keep your dreams alive Ian ;)
Some of the benefits of the uni IG is the range of temperatures it can operate in. Another advantage is the frame is independent so the cab can twist one direction whilst the trailer goes the opposite direction.
I've seen the folding backhoe Unimog version for sale in the U.S. from time to time. Old military surplus sales usually.
Over the pond here, where Mogs are working vehicles. Tree surgery trucks, fire trucks, snowplows & snow blowers, airport trucks, telecom line trucks, agricultural, log & stone haulers, biomass harvesting with a whole-tree chipper on the front & a chip box on the back. Can be fitted with a Hiab crane and on the smaller ones, can be driven on a car licence. Also seen a few converted to campervans for international travel.
There’s also a 6x6 version and a one-off U500 Brabus Unimog.
The dash and pedal box is on a sliding bar. A button and a lever and you can slide the whole lot across and make it left or right hand drive easily
They are brilliant
I have great memories driving a Unimog back in the eighties, in the RAF, including snow clearing and aircraft towing duties. But it was also great for doing burnouts and donuts, on the aircraft pans, if you know what I mean! 😉😉😂 We had hard tops and soft top versions, which were great in the summer.
I was telling a civilian how much fun the Unimog was to drive. It had an eight speed gearbox with a forward and reverse selector. It could go as fast backwards as it could forwards.
I was contradicted by one of my corporals (Hi Jonesy, if you're reading this) who said that they went faster backwards because they were better aerodynamically.
I have a Unimog 406 and it gets regular use around the farm. Depending on the season you might find it spreading fertilizer, sowing wheat, raking and baling hay, dragging logs, running a log splitter, pulling wagons, hauling gravel, and a host of other tasks. The thing is as handy as a shirt pocket.
My dad is a retired firefighter, but I remember as a kid, as my dad's always been a car guy, he'd volunteer when races were held locally to be fire safety, but he'd have to use a fire truck that wasn't one of the ones used in an emergency normally.
That ended up being their forest fire vehicle, a Unimog fire truck on beefy tractor like tires, and he'd pick me up to come with him to watch the races from the fire truck, as the local race track was built by a small mountain... (the ones where they'd set up trial motorcycle events as I think I mentioned on your video on that)
So we'd get a great view point by driving up into the mountain and park facing the track with an overview of the whole thing, but placed so that if an emergency would arise, we'd just go straight down the mountain (very steep too, don't think any other vehicles would be able to follow.)
My dad also told me about how effective it was at rescue in terrain, as he'd been tasked with getting to some emergency in some hills out in the country outside town, where farmers with their tractors didn't manage to get up the severe hill, and unfortunately the Unimog struggled too... until he remembered the water tank was full, so the truck weighed quite a lot, and as it wasn't a fire he dumped the water, let some air out of the tires, and almost flew up the hill where even tractors didn't get up.
Unimogs are beasts, they are however.... not very comfy on normal roads. :P
You might like the Pinzgauer
We have a fair few here in England, saw 1 about a week ago. Used by a lot of power companies for accessing power lines and poles off of the usual beaten path
Drove these and was a driving instructor in the Australian Army... and I know unimog doesn't stand for what we called it in the Army.. but we referred to them as UNIversal Movement Over Ground - Unimog 🤪. the drive hubs make it awesome for creek/river crossings and big ruts.
The gear box had an 8 speed, 4 lower range, through a plant gate and then you had 4 higher range gears. A lever for F-N-R, so we used to play tricks on the students and put it in neutral... they'd put it in 5th and go to take off and nothing 😀🤣 Or rotate the rear lens so the indicator was where the reverse was haha. But this also meant you had 8 gears in reverse 🤯 Its a weird feeling cha going gears while driving backwards. They have diff locks and pretty much do everything... except do more than 80kmh 🤣
I thought they were 8 normal gears forward and back then switch to low and have another 8 for each? Or is that on certain models or maybe I misunderstood the entire concept. I've always had my eyes on getting an ex Australian army one for camping and stupid offroad shit here in Victoria. Awesome stories about the tricks on apprentices. Thats literally my dad to me even now and I'm 26😂
I grew up on a 400 acre farm and bought my first car with my own money. Sure it was my neighbours brumby that I bought but midway through driving my old man would knock the gear lever into neutral everytime I'd quickly look out the window to check my surroundings etc.
Tell us more of your time in Unimogs, I'm intrigued😁
@@joshthomas2536 All the Army ones I drove had 4-through an air gate-then another 4. Ive heard theres others with splitter between gears to give 16 ratios, but yeah would make a great camper for off road. Theres actually an Aussie couple doing that and they post their adventures on youtube You may get some good ideas and see how good they go off road :)
When I was growing up and at middle school, we had an agricultural school right next door. We had all sorts of Unimogs there as the schoolchildren were using them to drive to school from their homes (read, farms)...
You could drive them here from 16 y/o (car driving licences are from 18 here) with a tractor driving licence but were still, basically, the local version of a pickup so it was a cool ride (plus, you don't see mopeds with three-point links etc :P)
40 km/h sticker on the back?
@@m.rei85 oh yeah, they were registered as tractors😁
i live in paris and there is one unimog that sits parked 4 blocks from i always love to stop and look at it when im passing by :) awesome machine !
there is even a big lego model of the unimog with a pneumatic arm it was really fun to built it andd play with it haha
Standard for a Unimog is the climbing ability of 100% (45°) and that was 1992 a world record for the Unimog.
Yes, and for all what is over 45 degree the swiss take out their Menzi Muck. Not so versatile, but if you need offroad capabilities to the max, that is the way to go.
Unimog likes pulling, digging, plowing, logging, transporting in almost any environment. Nobody ever that drove one was complaining about the missing entertainment package.
The U.S. Army and Marine Corps had them in the late 80's but only on the TO&E for about 5 years. They were engineer vehicles, assigned to Engineer units, so variations had front buckets, backhoes, etc. Their designation was Small Emplacement Excavator (SEE) earthmoving vehicle used to dig crew-served weapon positions, trenches, bunkers, etc. They were licensed by Freightliner like the big over-the-road trucks, but everyone just called them The Mog. They were handy for small, quick work and rapid movement from place-to-place but they weren't around long.
Mostly not used by regular Army any more (replaced by the Man 40M), I was taught to drive these when I served.
They are very capable, even more capable then the truck that replaced them.
8 speeds forward, 8 speeds backwards and none of them can do highway speeds... Lol
The New Zealand Defense Force (Army etc) have used Unimogs for years. You can see them traveling around the country at times.
You see them on a relatively regular basis in the Hutt Valley (from Trentham)
As soon as it snows you see them heading from Burnham to Tekapo 😂
On the getting new mogs, other than the 25 year old plus mogs, you have a few other options in the US. In the 2000s for about 5 or so years they certified and sold one of the series of unimogs through either Mercedes themselves or their subsidiary Freightliner. The other option is to looks for the us military surplus and case branded mogs (these are 406/416 mogs). These mogs were the SEE (special emplacement excavator, which had a bucket loader on the front and a backhoe on the back). The HMMH (High Mobility Material Handler, with a forklift on the front and a crane on the back). And the Case MB4/94 (basically a 406 and very similar to the military mogs).
I love the fact that they look so simple, yet are so capable and versatile. They look like a cheap entry level vehicle, yet whenever one is needed, this means we're talking some serious work/challenges lay ahead, not to be underrated.
I really love the older models where it seemed like a build-your-own vehicle for whatever task you needed. The ultra big modern ones are cool but it's not that DIY feel to it any more.
And you can't drive them as a cabrio. With the old ones you could even fold down the windscreen :-)
Unless it's already covered in an older video a fun fact regarding the Dakar racing references:
The trucks aren't *actually* even there to race. There's a rule in the Paris-Dakar race saying the racers are not allowed a support team etc. However they are allowed to accept help from fellow competitors! The trucks are basically there to support the fast rally cars. A mobile pit crew. Obviously they gotta at least *try* to keep up and over the years they've developed some competitiveness between the "pit crews" as well and as a result we have trucks racing across the desert!
Yeah damn, I remember the videos DAF Turbo Twin (someone please correct me if that's not the right name) passing the fastest car at the time. It's embedded into my memory, unfortunately I'm only 26 so I haven't had the experience of watching Dakar evolve
@@joshthomas2536 Yes, an accident with a daf caused a speedlimit for trucks to be introduced in the rallye.
Imagine a truck overtaking essentially a groupe b rallye car(peugeot 405t16) on sand. And that was not a baja/stadium pickup truck.
Back in my younger years, I worked as a firefighter for my community and I drove a Mercedes Unimog Fire Engine. It carried 3000 litres of water and 400 litres of foam consentrate. Water and foam cannons on top and hoses and things in the back and also on a small trailer we dragged behind. This hanger housed the portable water pump for getting water from the lake or rivers around, if water was not to be found near the fire. That car was really a Godsend as it could go everywhere in all sorts of weather. Snow up to the door? No problem. Super slippery and icy? Still no problem. It was not a speed demon, max speed about 50 miles per hour downhill, but we got there in the end.
Interestingly enough, Mercedes also used to make a straight up tractor besides the Unimog, it's called the MB-Trac. I think you'll have a lot of fun checking that thing out as well
UNIMOG = Beast Mode!!
Mogs are fantastic but they are ridiculously expensive to maintain.
The last time I saw the Unimog was in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. It was a Technical Relief vehicle used for disaster relief with a flatbed, a vinyl tent cover on top and a snowblower mounted to the front.
I can only recommend that museum. More than 1500 items on display.
You can literary stand right in front of the Patent Motorwagen (The first commercial automobile) with no barrier between.
Greetings from Gaggenau, the town where this "work horse" was build after WW2 and even after the production was moved away in 2002, ppl still remember the slogan that was used "Gaggenau isch Unimog, Unimog isch Gaggenau", the town lost a big part of its identity after the production was moved, and to preserve that good old times, a Unimog museum was build here in 2006. As other comments already wrote, beside of the history and many different exhibited types of the Unimog, you can also experience the possibilities of the Unimog by taking a ride through an obstacle course as a passenger or even after a training do that as a driver.
There are loads of Unimogs in Aus, but are very pricey.
Larry Perkins has 3, and designed and engineered the Mercades Approved Overdrive for them... sold world wide..
Only expensive, because they cost a crap load to repair...
In Germany there is the speech: if a Unimog can't get through, then no other can.
Always makes me wonder when americans are so fascinated with Unimogs. For us germans they are just there, in every colour and shape, since "always", as the name says, universal motor vehicle, the vehicle for every task of work you could immagine. Almost every village's fire station has got one, every road maintence site has at least one, the military got vast numbers of them, some farmers have one, lot of driving schools use them for ligh duty truck and tractor licences, since their standard two seat configuration of the cab is much more usefull for this purpose than conventional tractors, to seat the driving instructor and the trainee.
I drove it as a rescue truck for the fire department. 8 forward gears, 8 reverse gears. Theoretically you can drive it forwards and backwards (!!!) up to 110 km/h. The Unimog is just fun!
The CZcamsr Tedward actually has a video of how to drive one of these. Quite a good video.
If you want to react to it here is a link: czcams.com/video/DBLchakeCJs/video.html
Some local german companies have them, my home town has one for public gardening work.
The interesting thing about these is that they have a pre-selector manual gearbox.
To drive it you basically have to rev the engine up to 2500 rpm, select the next gear with the gear selector like a sequential transmission, and then use the clutch.
When coming to a stop there is a button on the side which will put the transmission back in first gear.
13:00 "In a country that never sold them" - he's wrong, they were sold 1975-80 through Case Corporation and 2002-2007 through Freightliner. Sales were poor, apparently only 184 during the second attempt. There were 2,416 special variant 419 built for the US Marine Corp and US Army.
We had them in the Royal Dutch Marines in the beginning of the 70s. The heavy duty winch is handy if you get stuck in a bog. Roll out the cable, sling it around a stake or a tree and winch yourself out. Same thing with the Land Rovers we had.
The only drawback of the UNIMOG is that when you do get stuck with it, no wrecker can help you. You need a cargo helicopter to recover it. But I have never heard of a UNIMOG getting stuck. I live 6 miles away from the plant where they build them, and I see them often in the vicinity when they do training rides with customers.
back in the early 70s, my late uncle bought a decomissioned communal unimog (a very frequent use for them), converted it into an RV/Camper for a road trip from Austria to India (via Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan). the whole trip took him and his then fiancee more than one and a half years. later, in the 80s, they toured the desert of northern Africa with it.
"Oh you want drive? OK take wheel" Thats one most cool feature honestly lol.
You can still see the agricultural/working-tool roots even in privately owned/recreational Unimogs, because they usually have an "engine hour counter" alongside a mileage-counter. That's specifically to indicate engine-wear from driving hydraulics, pneumatics, etc.
In the Austrian Alps you often see the old small ones which are used to take firewood to huts and shelters way above the tree line, across very narrow paths with roots and rocks. They usually are used where even the best pickup trucks get stuck because the terrain is just too rough.
Hey! 0:53 In the 80's, when I was a young soldier, i had 5 of these radio-operator-UNIMOGS in my platoon. They where very all-terrain-able. But with a ridio operator-cabin they had a high point of overflip. Driving was the hell, cause they had no seat, which means your legs went straight forward. The pitty was they had a petrol-engine, not a Diesel as the newer after them. And they where thirsty as camels in the desert. The enormous consumption of petrol: about 20 Liters on road. On front top of these radio-cabins was a heating located, which used petrol as well. It was very warm but dangerous. The fumes of that heating came into the cabin and killed a few of those who didn't care. In my brigade we had 3 soldiers dead by this. They locked windows and doors (which where very sealed by a rubber poetry) and slept away without any notice.
By the way: UNIMOG is the short form of "Universelles Motor Gerät", translated "universal motor device". The newer ones are the best ATVs I ever driven, but the first ones as you show in camouflage at 0:53 where the most adventurous... Thanks for reminding me!
But, small hint: Before you say loud u want one, have a look at the prices... It's still a Mercedes.
But if you really want one, look at the VEBEG- company in Germany (just google VEBEG) : that is used military stuff of the Bundeswehr, free for anyone. Since Ukraine-war, it becomes a litte fewer (i guess they send a lot of these things to that country) but I just took a look and there a a few 435er UNIMOGS right to be sold now.
Hi Gearheads,
Heard about the gearbox. Same speed backwards as forward?
I tried one in the Danish Army in the late 80s.
Also a old Dodge Power Van on petrol fuel.
And the Magirus Deutz V8 pulling a 14 ton, 8 inch Howitzer (203mm).💪
Pure fun when off roading.
Have a bright day.
My Father was a Diver of a Unimog Ambulance in the Bundeswehr in the 80s. That Truck is just cool.
Drove it in the army, 30 years ago, loved it. Not everybody did. 75kph on normal roads was about it. No steering enhancement.... again: loved it!