This earthmover Unimog is one of those vehicles that I have absolutely no conceivable use for, but find myself wanting all the same.
It’s a Freightliner-modified Mercedes-Benz Unimog that was built for the US military, it’s fitted with a front-end loader, there’s a backhoe in the rear, and the vehicle has an auxiliary hydraulics attachment for running hydraulic power tools like a jack hammer or rock drill.
The front end loader and backhoe attachments can both be removed when not required, this considerably lightens the truck of course and makes it far easier to drive on public roads when needed.
Up front the loader is rated at .75 cubic yards, the lift height is 98″, it’ll lift 3,300 lbs and the breakout force is 6,000 lbs. In the rear the backhoe can dig up to 14′ deep with a reach of over 17′, and it has a break out force of 10,000 lbs.
Unimogs have been used by various militaries around the world for decades, the combination of load carrying ability and excellent off-road capability have made them invaluable. This has also led to them being a popular choice for 4×4 camper conversions and for use by various forestry services, geological surveys, emergency services, search and rescue, and they have a multitude of agricultural applications.
Both the United States Marine Corps and United States Army use the Unimog 419 as an engineer tractor, which was the service the vehicle you see here would have provided. Differently equipped Unimogs are also in use by the US Army for accessing remote installations.
The Unimog 419 was a special version of the Unimog 406 that was developed specifically for the US armed forces. Approximately 2,400 Unimog 419s were built, all at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Gaggenau in southern Germany but all were badged as Freightliners.
The vehicles were significantly modified once they arrived in the United States to meet the requirements set forward by the military, and they were all fitted with the more powerful Mercedes-Benz OM 352 diesel engine.
The OM 352 is a 5.7 litre (5,675cc) inline-six cylinder engine with a bore x stroke of 97 mm × 128 mm and a power output of 109 hp at 2,800 rpm with 234 ft lbs of torque at 1,700 rpm. Almost all examples of the Unimog 419 that were built were equipped with hydraulic earthmoving equipment, and 2,200 of them were fully overhauled in 2001 including the example you see here.
Power is sent to all four wheels via a 16 speed transmission which includes 8 reverse gears. The vehicle has coil springs with telescopic shock absorbers and it rides on portal gear axles which give it excellent ground clearance and help keep the differentials up out of the way.
The company selling this vehicle is asking for $25,999 USD, they’ve sold over 70 Unimogs like this in the past so they have plenty of experience, they’ve written a refreshingly detailed description, and they can arrange shipping within the United States.
If you’d like to read more about it or hit the Buy It Now button you can click here to visit the listing.
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
