The Unimog rescues people, transports loads, even travels on rails and can do much more: its name stands for “Universal Motorised Equipment”.
The permanent exhibition at the Mercedes-Benz Museum shows a Unimog U 500 in Collection Room 3: The Gallery of Helpers. It can make progress almost anywhere and can clear 1,600 tonnes of snow per hour. Winter road clearance is one of many very different roles in which the Unimog comes into its own.
This Unimog U 500 is an exhibit in the permanent exhibition of the Mercedes-Benz Museum.
A model-series 411 Unimog during field work with a front-mounted cultivator.
In agricultural environments, the Unimog is a force to be reckoned with right from the start. As a versatile helper, it brings motorisation to fields and woodlands.
Snow-clearing operations are a simple matter for the Unimog. This is the ideal vehicle for this purpose because subzero temperatures and associated events simply cannot stop it: so it clears the way for other road users.
A Unimog with front-mounted snow clearing attachments and a grit spreader at the back, in 2015.
Unimog as an aircraft towing vehicle. Additional weights increase its braking performance.
The Unimog can handle heavy freight. It is even used to tow jumbo jets at airports and works in underground mines. Construction site operations are all in a day’s work.
It’s a vehicle for life. In the 1990s, the Funmog with metallic paintwork created a lifestyle eye-catcher. Today Unimogs from seven decades are popular classics, recent and future classics with the added fun factor for the whole family.
Exceptionally stylish performance for an evening at the opera: the Funmog in the 1990s.
Unimog U 527 from 2017 mowing along the roadside with a Mulag trio mower.
Over 3,500 different attachments and bodies have been approved for the Unimog to date, which makes it an undisputed universal talent. Its diversity is also used for street cleaning and maintaining gardens and parks.
The Unimog is just the right vehicle if others do not stand a chance, which is why it is in use for expeditions in every corner of the globe. With the right body, it can even be used as an off-road camper van.
Unimog with a Bimobil camper-van body from 2018.
This Unimog refuse collection vehicle travels by cable car to Bettmeralp in Switzerland, at an altitude of 2,000 metres.
The Unimog’s ability to climb mountains is in its genes, because it was developed on the gruelling Sauberg off-road test track near Gaggenau. And if even the Unimog itself cannot climb a mountain on its own, it takes the cable car.
The Unimog is also absolutely at home on rails. As a road-and-rail vehicle, it can even shunt entire trains. It is also used by tram and underground operators for maintenance work.
Unimog as a road-and-rail vehicle manoeuvring a freight train around 1980.
Fast forward to today: the Unimog U 5023 of the volunteer fire brigade in Kirchzarten in the Upper Black Forest can fight forest fires.
Fire brigades and rescue services have relied on the Unimog for decades. The mountain rescue team also counts on it. And on the coast, the all-rounder can pull lifeboats ashore because it can easily cope with the mudflats.
Why not have street food off the beaten track? In Finland, a chef converted his Unimog into a food truck – including a barbecue oven for burgers. Now nothing stands in the way of good food out in the wild.
The Finnish chef and food photographer Sami Repo has converted a Unimog U 318 into a mobile event kitchen.