The Mercedes-Benz Unimog was born many decades ago as an agricultural, military, and commercial truck. Some of the original models were small tractor-like go-anywhere vehicles. These trucks got larger in size over the years. Now, they are being built up into ultra-capable overland vehicles. While their off-road capability is undeniable, can these beasts be driven on a daily basis? Can they keep up with highway traffic? Let’s find out.
This Unimog is refurbished and upgraded by Couch Off-Road Engineering. It’s a large crew cab that is rolling on 46-inch all-terrain tires. It has monstrous 22+ inches of ground clearance, front & rear locking differentials, and lots of weight-carrying capacity. When unladen, this beast weighs around 14,500 lbs.
It has a straight-six turbo-diesel engine that has been upgraded to around 300 horsepower, and it has a 24-speed manual transmission. It’s a transmission that offers an 8-gear shift pattern. Every gear has an overdrive. It also has low-range gears (aka. working gear set) for ultimate crawling.
In this video, I take the truck on a 60-mile trip across northern Colorado. I need to drive it through town and on I-25 with a 75 MPH speed limit. While city driving at slow speeds is a bit busy with a lot of gear changes – it cruises on the highway with surprising ease. Yes, I did go 75 mph in it. Check out the video below.
