Mercedes Has Built The Most Powerful & Luxurious Unimog Ever! | 4K

0:00 So, you think you're king of the car park

0:02 in your G Wagon until this guy shows up.

0:05 Say hello to the most luxurious and most powerful Uniog ever built.

0:10 Coming up, we're going to show you inside and out.

0:14 M comfy.

0:16 Consider practicality and it is absolutely practical.

0:20 Wonder about accessibility and I may dislocate a hip.

0:23 Drive it on a public road and get a bit carried away while commuting.

0:28 It's like a sports lorry.

0:30 It makes you feel amazing.

0:38 Now, anyone that knows me knows that I love a good unimog.

0:42 They are the ultimate in practical go anywhere, do anything vehicles,

0:46 like a cross between a tractor and a tank.

0:49 They can compete in any arena from forestry to agriculture.

0:53 Now, I have actually driven slightly luxurious unimogs in the past.

0:56 There was a Brabus version with a lot of quilted leather,

0:59 but nothing quite like this.

1:04 It's not small, is it?

1:05 But this is MercedesBenz special trucks

1:07 collaboration with a company called Hellgath Engineering to create a mad one-off

1:12 concept for the Mog's upcoming 80th birthday.

1:15 And I would genuinely daily this.

1:18 I would pick my children up from school.

1:20 I'm not even kidding.

1:23 So, this thing is originally based on a vehicle called the U423.

1:28 So, you get all the really good Unimog stuff like portal axles front and back,

1:32 which means there's no diff down here because it's up here.

1:35 And there's a gear set in the hubs.

1:37 This thing can wade up to a meter deep without any modification.

1:41 It's got decent load space here in the pickup bed.

1:43 I reckon I could get at least two IKEA flat packs

1:46 in here or just have some sort of sort of random dance party.

1:50 It is quite practical.

1:53 A frame that'll actually flex while it's off-roading.

1:56 Super strong four-wheel drive and of course a full complement of diff locks.

2:01 But this version just gets well more

2:03 of everything like LED lighting front and rear.

2:06 Matte gray paintwork.

2:08 20-in aluminium beadlock wheels with a central tire inflation system which

2:12 means that you can pump the tires up from inside the cab.

2:15 It's got more angular body panels that make

2:17 it look a bit like a Unimog Death Star.

2:19 and also digital rear view mirrors like a truck.

2:24 It's got an awesome roof rack, although it is slightly inaccessible.

2:28 I'm not sure what you'd actually be able to get up here.

2:31 Skid plate off a battleship.

2:33 World's biggest roll hoop.

2:34 And it's got a 165 L fuel tank,

2:37 which can be extended to 235 L or more if that's what you need.

2:41 It would cost you roughly £350 to fill this with diesel,

2:45 and it only does singledigit MPG.

2:48 mainly because in here is a Hellgath tuned

2:50 version of Mercedes OM936 straight six diesel engine.

2:54 That's 7.7 L of gumption, 1.1 L per cylinder.

3:00 It's got 300 brake horsepower and 1,033 lb feet of torque,

3:06 which sounds like a lot until you realize this thing weighs over 10 tons,

3:09 which gives it the power to weight ratio of an original

3:12 Renault 4 at about 30 brake horsepower per ton.

3:15 0 to 62 miles an hour is yes, possibly.

3:21 But obviously that's not the point.

3:22 This thing is about being good off-road.

3:25 And it's got all the right bits to be pretty much unstoppable.

3:29 But if you want to say that this is the most luxurious Unimog ever,

3:32 then it better have more than just a cyberpunk outside.

3:36 And first we have to get in, which requires actual stairs,

3:40 and I may dislocate a hip.

3:43 Hang on.

3:44 Oh, good god.

3:50 Oh.

3:51 So, one of the first things you'll notice when you get in here is

3:54 that this is one of the biggest vehicles you could drive on a road.

3:58 And yet, it is only a four-seater.

4:00 Although, those four seats are more quilted

4:03 and leathery and heated and electric than most Unimogs.

4:06 Look, it's got air suspension, so your bum is always in the right position.

4:10 There's a lot of leather everywhere actually,

4:12 including on this what appears to be a dayb

4:14 bed which sits in the middle of the car.

4:16 And then on these roof panels, which aren't sunroofs,

4:19 they're just LED leathery kind of accentuators.

4:23 And you still address the wheel like you're driving a school bus.

4:27 Look how flat this steering wheel is,

4:29 which appears to be just a giant version of a normal Mercedes wheel.

4:32 Then you've got the digital rear view cameras.

4:34 So this is the left, that's the right,

4:36 and there's one in the middle here, which goes directly behind the vehicle.

4:39 This is the handbrake, which is pneumatic like on a truck.

4:42 And then there's a normal set of Mercedes dials.

4:45 Then you come across to the dash, which is quite simple.

4:48 And you've got a set of different diff locks here for all three of them.

4:51 You've got air conditioning and stuff here.

4:53 You've got ABS for off-road, so it's a different system.

4:56 Then you've got a splitter box so that you

4:57 can go into a low range system effectively.

5:00 And then there's different things like you can purge the engine.

5:03 You've got the central tire inflation system.

5:05 These are very special buttons.

5:07 They're for the electric windows.

5:09 And then here are some vents which look

5:11 like they're out of a very cheap vehicle.

5:13 There is a little map light on a bendy thing and lots and lots of space.

5:20 Although I am sat very very high.

5:23 I feel like I could lose entire cars under the front of this thing.

5:27 Interestingly, utility Unimogs,

5:30 the ones that you see with gang mowers and all that sort of stuff,

5:32 have a steering column that you can unbolt and swing over to the other side

5:37 of the vehicle so you can work

5:39 from the most convenient side for the thing you're doing.

5:42 This one doesn't have it cuz this is kind of a luxury powerful one.

5:45 And then when you're off-road, you can go into low range on the transfer box.

5:50 You can have crawler gears and then you

5:52 can even have gearing in the portal axles.

5:54 with this thing would be absolutely unstoppable off-road.

5:58 Unfortunately, it's very expensive, so they've said we can't off-road it today,

6:01 but they didn't say I couldn't drive it on the road.

6:04 But before that, ever wondered why the Unimog exists?

6:08 The thing about the Unimog is it's always been a bit of a legend,

6:11 and it's been in the game for getting on for 80 years.

6:15 Originally designed by aerero engine engineer Albert Friedrich,

6:20 Unimog's first prototypes were knocked out by Friedrich,

6:23 Hinrich Rosler, and Han Zable after World War II.

6:27 And the original MOGs were supposed to fit over two

6:29 rows of potatoes for tractoring work with their portal axles,

6:32 but also have equaliz so they could operate as a truck on road,

6:38 doing both jobs, which makes them a twofor one deal.

6:42 So since inception, they've always been designed to do a variety of things.

6:46 Uniog is actually a mishmash abbreviation of the German universal motorate.

6:52 Gate being the German word for a piece of equipment,

6:55 which is obviously what you bolt onto the basic MOG.

6:58 They're the Swiss Army knife of truckery.

7:00 The shortened name officially hit the shelves on the 20th of November 1946.

7:05 And since 52, it's been a brand

7:07 under the opaces of Daimler Trucks and MercedesBenz.

7:11 and the older ones keep going.

7:13 This is a venerable Unimog from back in the day, and it's got five gear levers,

7:18 can reverse in all four gears, and still makes off-road stuff look easy.

7:27 But the really cool thing is Unios come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

7:34 Let's take a look at some of the older

7:35 muggs in the museum because they're all quite different.

7:41 This is a Unioimog that's been adapted for use on the railways.

7:45 So, it can drive to an access point, beyond the rails within 30 seconds.

7:49 It can tow a,000 tons either forwards or backwards.

7:52 So if you've got a train stuck in a tunnel, that's your rescue truck,

7:58 snowplow, fire engine, 1940s farming and Swiss army forestry,

8:10 milk float, massive flatbeds.

8:21 These early versions were only roughly 25 horsepower,

8:24 but they could still do tiny forestry.

8:27 By the way, you see these?

8:29 They keep you afloat in a wet and muddy field.

8:34 Ow.

8:41 That's the thing about a unimog.

8:43 It's adaptable.

8:45 It's small enough, or at least the smaller versions are

8:48 small enough to get places that other heavy plant can't get.

8:52 And then you can drive it on a road at up to 56 miles an hour.

8:55 And it's actually comfortable and quiet, especially with these sprung seats.

9:01 It's a real experience to drive one.

9:04 And then when you get to a place where you've got to work,

9:06 you can bolt on pretty much any piece of equipment you can think of to drive.

9:12 It's very lorryike.

9:14 So, even though it's quiet and comfy, the steering is very vague.

9:20 The gearbox is a little slow.

9:22 The road holding is there, but I wouldn't want to push it too far.

9:28 Jesus.

9:29 Corners are not its favorite thing.

9:31 The one thing I keep thinking is it does make you feel super super powerful.

9:36 This is like driving a tank on the road.

9:40 I suddenly realized what truck drivers feel like

9:43 and how much attention they have to pay.

9:45 It's not that hard to drive though.

9:47 You've just got to be aware of the size.

9:50 So, these rear view mirrors, the digital ones,

9:53 actually work really well because they show me directly what's down here

9:56 by my hip and also what's behind on the rear wheel arch.

10:05 I'm going through town.

10:06 It's kind of like a bit It is a bit scary.

10:11 I can't imagine you'd get more attention if you're in a Lambo.

10:17 Look, traffic.

10:18 I'm in traffic and it's not its favorite place to be.

10:23 Good god.

10:25 Right, I've got to look down here.

10:27 Oh, good god.

10:30 Yeah, we're good.

10:31 It's a sports lorry.

10:33 It's a sports lorry.

10:35 This is incredible.

10:37 This is probably my favorite car of the year just because I love Unimogs.

10:45 I'm driving around town in a giant truck.

10:50 I mean, I have driven lorries before,

10:52 but this just feels like something different.

10:55 It's the hypercar version of an Arctic, and it makes you feel amazing.

11:02 Is a roundabout.

11:03 Brilliant.

11:10 I could have just driven straight over that and it would have been fine.

11:15 Oh no, I've got people.

11:17 It's a narrow bit of road.

11:22 Yeah, it's okay when there are no other cars.

11:25 I could I could daily one of these.

11:29 I could genuinely drive one every day.

11:31 It would be hard to go say into central London in one, but I try.

11:37 Just needs some air horns.

11:45 So, this particular awesome Uniog isn't slated for production as yet,

11:49 mainly because people who buy Uniogs generally buy

11:52 them for working rather than popping to the shops.

11:55 But, it does go to show what can be

11:57 achieved if you never use an underground car park.

12:00 Though apparently there has been some interest

12:02 in a limited production run probably costing north of €750,000.

12:07 I tell you one thing though, if you turn up to Casino Square

12:10 in one of these, nobody is looking anywhere else,

12:13 no matter what Lamborghini you've got.

12:16 So what would you use one for?

12:18 I have some very specific ideas.