Mercedes-Benz UniMog: Crushin It! - Ignition Episode 59 - video Dailymotion

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On this episode of Ignition

Transcript

00:00 Welcome to a very special episode of Ignition.

00:04 Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way right up front.

00:07 Zero to 60? Probably not.

00:10 Quarter mile? Eventually.

00:13 60 to zero braking? Who cares? You'll just run over whatever you're going to hit.

00:18 As far as the figure eight goes, figure anything, because with the exception of a tank,

00:24 this is the most capable production vehicle on the planet.

00:28 This is a Unimog.

00:31 [Music]

01:00 So the question becomes, what makes a Unimog so special?

01:04 Well, to find out, we've come to the town of Gaggenau, here to the Unimog Museum, to explain.

01:10 There's a couple key points that kind of differentiate a Unimog from other vehicles.

01:14 The first is the portal axles.

01:17 And other vehicles use these. We just saw it on that Jeep FC concept.

01:21 The Hummer H1 has been using it ever since it became a military vehicle.

01:25 Essentially, instead of the axle being geared into the center of the wheel,

01:29 it goes into the top of the wheel and then is geared down.

01:32 So that gives you more ground clearance.

01:34 So instead of, say, eight inches of ground clearance, by moving the axle up,

01:38 you get 16 inches of ground clearance.

01:40 The second point is massive articulation.

01:43 You can see here, this wheel is about two feet off the ground.

01:47 And the driver's side rear wheel is also two feet off the ground at the same time.

01:51 And all four wheels are in contact with the road.

01:54 And you're able to do that because of this crazy suspension design,

01:57 where there's really no fix, there's no hard points.

02:00 Both axles are kind of mounted in these flexible torque tubes,

02:03 so they can not only go up and down, but they can twist up to 30 degrees in either direction.

02:07 Instead of leaf springs, like a lot of tractors and trucks of the time had,

02:11 and actually still have, it's got coil springs at all four corners.

02:14 And so you just get this freaking massive articulation.

02:17 In fact, the engine and transmission are only mounted to the frame in three points,

02:21 and those are flexible rubber mounts, which you can see here.

02:25 So the engine and transmission can actually move,

02:27 if the thing needs to keep on twisting and twisting to get over whatever's in its way.

02:32 Another thing that makes the Unimog so capable is the transmission.

02:42 And it's pretty interesting.

02:44 You can see here it's open.

02:45 And you could just go ahead and mount a plate there.

02:47 But you could also put on what they call a power take-off unit.

02:51 And what that does is it provides an auxiliary shaft,

02:54 which can be in the front of the vehicle, the rear of the vehicle, even in the middle.

02:58 And you can run any number of accessories, like a snow plow, a snow blower, a seed spreader, etc.

03:04 But what's cool is, so obviously it's an all-wheel drive vehicle,

03:08 and the rear wheels are permanently engaged.

03:10 The front wheels kind of spin freely, unless you need to engage the all-wheel drive.

03:15 And you just do so by pulling this thing up.

03:17 And now, boom, this is locked front to rear.

03:20 And so you've got full-time all-wheel drive.

03:22 What's also cool about Unimogs, even from the very early ones in the '40s,

03:26 they had six forward gears and two reverse gears.

03:29 And now modern Unimogs have eight forward gears and four reverse gears.

03:33 So why would you want more than one reverse gear?

03:36 Well, let's say you had to move a train.

03:39 And yeah, by the way, they use Unimogs to move trains around yards.

03:43 Obviously, you might have to back that train up at some point,

03:45 so you'd want to start out slowly and increase your speed and increase your speed and increase your speed.

03:50 So this transmission, it just provides more capability than you get in other vehicles.

03:56 So I just want to show you a couple of the really cool vehicles they have here in the museum,

04:08 starting with this one.

04:10 This is one of the original Unimog prototypes.

04:12 In fact, it's number six out of six.

04:15 And the museum thinks that this is the oldest one in existence.

04:19 It's probably a little over-restored.

04:21 They never really had pain with this quality back then.

04:24 But even back in 1947, everything that makes a Unimog is there.

04:29 You've got the portal axles.

04:31 You've got the twisting, articulating frame.

04:33 You've got the power takeoff unit with an auxiliary shaft going out front.

04:36 You've got the transmission with multiple reverse gears.

04:39 And actually, one of my favorite features, the track on this is 127 centimeters wide.

04:45 Why? Because that's the width of two rows of potatoes.

04:49 I don't think there's any question that by far the coolest Unimog in the museum is this one.

04:59 This is a 1952 Swiss Unimog fire truck.

05:03 The reason you come to museums is to find stuff like this and also to find out about them.

05:08 For instance, I didn't know that apparently in Europe a fire crew consists of eight people.

05:14 With the standard wheelbase, you could only get six people inside this thing.

05:18 So Unimog did a 40 centimeter stretch and boom, you could fit eight firemen in relative comfort.

05:24 And I just can't overstate how absolutely wonderful this thing is.

05:28 And if I could take any of them home, this would be the one.

05:31 While the museum itself was worth the trip to Gaggenau,

05:35 I simply had to experience firsthand the awesome capabilities of Mercedes-Benz's universal motor Gerrard,

05:42 aka the Unimog.

05:44 Luckily, the museum has a parkourist out back.

05:48 [Music]

06:08 Finally, after lying about having the proper commercial vehicle license, it was my time to try out a Moc.

06:14 [Music]

06:27 Over the years, I have developed a fair degree of skill when it comes to talking and driving.

06:31 Every ounce of which went out the window the second I climbed behind the wheel of the mighty U4000.

06:37 Rest assured, it was the happiest 30 minutes of my professional life.

06:42 [Music]

06:48 Ever since I first drove the Ford Raptor, I've been calling it the most capable production vehicle on earth.

06:54 And I was doing that because I'd never driven a Unimog.

06:57 And no offense to the Raptor, you know, a truck I really like, but this thing is just unstoppable.

07:05 You know, we were going through four feet of water, we had three feet of wheel articulation,

07:09 we were bounding over rocks, we were going up grades like that, going down grades even steeper,

07:14 and then doing it again in reverse.

07:16 I can't even imagine what it would take to bog this truck down.

07:19 And more than that, you know, I've been wanting to drive a Unimog for almost 30 years now,

07:24 ever since I saw one in some magazine decades ago.

07:27 And I got to really live out my dream, and not only was it as good as I imagined,

07:32 it was a little bit better because, I don't know, we were just, you know, crashing through sheets of ice.

07:38 It was just absolutely incredible.

07:40 I've got to say, I'm as happy as a Unimog in a mud pit.

07:45 Thanks for watching, everybody. I'll see you next time.

07:48 [Music]

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Mercedes-Benz UniMog: Crushin It! - Ignition Episode 59

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