Unimog

The Unimog (pronunciation in American English: YOU-nuh-mog; British English: YOU-knee-mog;^[1] German: [ˈʊnɪmɔk], listen^ⓘ) is a Daimler Truck line of multi-purpose, highly offroad capable AWD vehicles with Power take-off (PTO) driveshafts that since 1948 can be used with additional equipment in the roles of tractors, light trucks and lorries, for snow plowing, in agriculture, forestry, rural firefighting, in the military, even in rallying and as recreational vehicles. The frame is designed to be a flexible part of the suspension, not to carry heavy loads.

Conceived in 1944 in response to the Morgenthau Plan, former DB airplane engine engineers developed prototypes under occupation. The small universally-applicable motorised 25hp workhorse should be able to fit over two rows of potatoes to work on fields like a slow agricultural tractor, but with four equal size wheels on portal axles, coil spring suspension, and many gears, it was designed to also run fast on roads like a truck. Unimog production started in 1948 at Boehringer [de] in Göppingen. When larger production numbers were needed, Daimler-Benz took over manufacture of the Unimog in 1951, and first produced it in their Gaggenau plant, and the Unimog was sold under the Mercedes-Benz brand. However, the first Unimog to feature the three-pointed Mercedes-Benz star instead of the Boehringer bullhead was only introduced in 1953. From the 1970s, the more tractor-like MB-trac series was offered before it was outsourced in 1990. Since 2002, the Unimog has been built in the Mercedes-Benz truck plant in Wörth am Rhein in Germany.^[2] The Mercedes-Benz Türk A.Ş. plant assembles Unimogs in Aksaray, Turkey.^[3] Unimogs were also built in Argentina (first ever country to do so outside Germany) by Mercedes-Benz Argentina S.A. under licence from 1968 until 1983 (with some extra units built until 1991 off the assembly line from parts in stock) in the González Catán factory near the city of Buenos Aires, as stated in the book "El Unimog en el Ejército Argentino", by Argentine author and historian Gaston Javier Garcia Loperena in 2015.^{[4]: 141 [5]: 122}

The first model was designed by Albert Friedrich and Heinrich Rößler shortly after World War II to be used in agriculture as a self-propelled machine providing a power take-off to operate saws in forests or harvesting machines on fields. It was designed with rear-wheel drive and switchable front-wheel drive, with equal-size wheels, in order to be driven on roads at higher speeds than standard farm tractors. With their very high ground clearance and a flexible frame that is essentially a part of the suspension, Unimogs are not designed to carry as much load as regular trucks.^[6]: 7

Due to their off-road capabilities, Unimogs can be found in jungles, mountains and deserts as military vehicles, fire fighters, expedition campers, and even in competitions like truck trials and Dakar Rally rally raids. In Western Europe, they are commonly used as snowploughs, municipal equipment carriers, agricultural implements, forest ranger vehicles, construction equipment or road–rail vehicles and as army personnel or equipment carriers (in its armoured military version). New Unimogs can be purchased in one of two series: medium series 405, also known as the UGN ("Geräteträger" or equipment carrier),^[7]: 4 and heavy series 437, also known as the UHN ("Hochgeländegängig" or highly mobile cross country).^[8]