Mercedes-Benz Unimog the perfect Dakar vehicle
The 2011 Dakar Rally is scheduled for January 1st – 16th, our suggestion for transportation. We would like to recommend the 2011 Mercedes-Benz Unimog for your vehicle of choice. The Unimog is technically considered a commercial vehicle but anyone who has had the privilege of driving one knows they are unlike any commercial truck sold in The States. They are to the Europeans what a full size 4wd 1-ton truck is to Americans… except, they are bigger, stronger, and tougher in just about every way. They are built to climb 45 degree grades with a full load, cross rivers (they come from the factory with a snorkel kit), and are equipped with terrain adapting tire pressure regulators. The front and rear axles have a full 30 degrees of travel as well as torque interruption sensing automatic differential lockers to make sure all four wheels are turning when the terrain demands it. If you want one of these monsters you’re going to have to import it in from Germany. But if you have the kind of money it takes to race Dakar, that probably doesn’t matter very much.
The Shmoo, for anyone who remembers the Li’l Abner comic strip, was a little blob-shaped critter that would be anything you wanted him to be. The Unimog is a mechanical shmoo, only without the self-sacrificing part. Unimog stands for Universal-Motor-Gerät, German for universal motor equipment, and if ever there were truth in advertising, this is it. Technically, the Unimog is a forward-control tractor with four equal-sized wheels, but from there it can do anything from farming and roadside grass mowing to off-road firefighting, and Unimog makes a military version as well. Developed in postwar Germany and adopted by Mercedes-Benz in 1953, the Unimog was powered by a six-cylinder Mercedes passenger car engine and had a relatively short 114-inch wheelbase with minimal front or rear overhang. Portal axles offset the wheelhub downward for another 6 inches of clearance. It had a top speed of almost 60 miles per hour but was unstoppable off-road. A larger version was added in the mid-1970s with more power, more ground clearance, and deeper fording capability. It’s the go-anywhere versatility that’s the greatest asset of the Unimog, however. If you need to go somewhere, a Unimog can get you there.
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This post was compiled by Memin Pinguin
1 Comments
November 14th, 2010 at 6:26
[...] of models. Only remote assembling a pick-up, but it would be good enough to give the name, is the Mercedes Unimog. (To the editor of this report Mercedes Unimog Trophy Truck sounds divine… ) So this would [...]