Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. Mercedes-Benz Goes MAD With The Unimog Luxury Show Truck
Forget the G-Wagon, this is the over-the-top Merc you want!
Forget your Defender, sell your G-Wagon, Mercedes-Benz has just presented the “Final Boss” of Go-Anywhere-Do-Anything luxury cars. What you see here is the Mercedes-Benz Unimog Luxury Show Car. Or truck, rather, as it’s the size of a house and if this were to roll up behind you on the highway, you’d better move out of the way. If not, it might just squash you and be on its way like nothing ever happened. But what is it all about, exactly? Well, for starters, it’s the ultimate incarnation of rugged luxury.
It seems like ultra-rugged utilitarian vehicles will, at one point in their lifetime, evolve into a pure luxury car. It’s almost like they’ve been played an UNO-reverse card, and had no answer and undergone their fate head-on. It happened to the Land Rover, the Humvee, and the Geländewagen or G-class/G-Wagon by Mercedes-Benz. All were originally destined to serve people in the most challenging circumstances, even protecting the lives of the very men and women who used them.
Yet, look at them now, and the Land Rover, Humvee and Gelände are very different beasts. Each of them has gone from a pure utilitarian vehicle to a statement of luxury. The modern-day Defender roams the high streets, the Humvee is turned into an electric “Supertruck” and the G-Wagon… well, I think it’s fair to say that’s the ultimate luxury barge. Big and boxy, loud and proud, especially in its 6×6 form. But there’s a new king in town, and it comes from the same company as the G-Wagon!
Unimog, The true Go-Anywhere Vehicle
The Unimog finds its roots in post-WWII Germany and was developed by former Mercedes-Benz aeroplane engine engineers. The original concept was designed to run on tall yet narrow wheels to be able to run over two rows of potatoes in a field. Fitted with a 25-horsepower engine, it was intended to be used as a slow agricultural vehicle. The first Unimog went into production in 1948, and featured a flexible chassis, portal axles, coil spring suspension and a multi-gear transmission to make it suitable for on- and off-road work.
Not long after its introduction and with the demand for the farm truck on the rise, Daimler-Benz took over production, with the Unimog being sold as a Mercedes from 1951 onwards. The Unimog, which actually stands for UNIversal Motor-Gerät or universal motorised device, always stood out for its high ground-clearance and unique off-roading capabilities. Fitted with multiple power take-offs, it proved to be the perfect platform for all sorts of utilitarian work and adaptable to suit whatever job was needed. But it was never meant to be a luxury vehicle, until now…
Luxurious Bad-assery
The Mercedes-Benz Unimog U4023 Luxury Show Car is built by and for the Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks department’s 80th anniversary next year, in collaboration with Hellgeth Engineering. The latter is a specialist firm dedicated to conversions based on Mercedes trucks, including Unimog. They make everything from firetrucks to airport service vehicles, mining trucks, catering vehicles and whatever specialised application you can think of.
This mad machine started life as an Unimog U4023, one of the heavy-duty off-road trucks in the brand’s current line-up. And surprisingly, despite its gargantuan size, it’s not even the biggest one they make! Offering extreme off-roading capabilities thanks to Unimog’s advanced, flexible chassis and suspension tech, this will basically drive on, where others simply grind to a halt and break down. But where the standard U4023 comes with a 5.1-litre turbocharged diesel engine producing 230bhp and 900Nm of torque, this one’s been given a bit of extra oomph.
It’s fitted with Mercedes’ OM 936 engine, which is used in the brand’s mid-sized trucks. This 7.7-litre six-cylinder diesel engine produces 300bhp and a staggering 1,450Nm of torque! According to Mercedes, this gives the Unimog Luxury Show Car a higher level of performance (yay!) and optimised transmission tuning and increased driving comfort without compromising its all-terrain capabilities. It also runs on 20-inch aluminium beadlock wheels with massive 395/85R20 Michelin X Force ZL tyres.
The four-door cab is clad in leather, with four individual sports seats to keep the Unimog’s crew (seems like a better way to put it) in comfort. It also features ambient LED lighting on the inside, as well as climate control, mobile connectivity and so on. The exterior is finished in matte grey, has a special LED lighting system to see miles ahead at night and scare the crap out of people on the road, and has a pick-up bed to haul all your adventuring necessities.
But the most staggering facts are some of the off-roading specs it puts down. It can wade through rivers, has lockable differentials front, centre and rear, is able to tackle inclines of 100% (so a full 45-degree climb) without breaking a sweat, has a 30-degree maximum axle articulation, a 24-inch diagonal chassis articulation, and its lowest of eight off-road gears gives you a crawl speed of just 2km per hour. Sounds mighty impressive!
Fortunately, perhaps, as it takes away the itch to buy, this mad-mad Unimog show truck is a true one-off with no intention for serial production. If it were to be entered into production, however, and I’m pretty sure some very wealthy individuals will be knocking on Mercedes-Benz’s doors, it will likely cost a pretty penny. Any type of Unimog is costly, as they are engineered to do very specific work and come packed with tech. Adding a layer of ultra-luxury and style will only add to that and balloon the price to new heights. Regardless of the financial aspect, I do hope someone is brave enough to push this project past the one-off state!
For more information, please visit Daimler-Truck.com.
Editorial Note: All information used for and images portrayed in this article are sourced from and used with permission of Daimler Trucks unless stated otherwise.
