"One of the best vehicles I've ever driven": welcome to the 7.7-litre Hellgeth Unimog

There is no purpose other than purpose. They live at the extreme niche of form follows function where they circle back to be outrageously cool to some people. Full transparency, I’m one of them.

Photography: Alex Tapley

So Unimogs aren’t supposed to be gilded. They’re well equipped for what they do certainly, but that tends to focus on the hardwearing and practical rather than bouji and stylish. 

They were invented after WW2 by a chap called Albert Friedrich – who previously designed aeroplane engines – as a kind of do-it-all agricultural Swiss Army knife. Ably assisted by Heinrich Rößler and Hans Zablel, Friedrich conceived a machine that could comfortably straddle two rows of potatoes with diff-raising portal axles, and yet take those same tatties to market thanks to same sized wheels, coil springs and decent road manners.

A tractor that was also a lorry. And yet, with their engine-driven power-take-offs (PTOs) at either end, they soon became the go-to for people that needed an extreme off roader which could also operate specialist machinery.

The name itself is a contraction of ‘Universal-Motor-Gerät’ – ‘Gerät’ meaning piece of equipment or gadget. Hello agriculture, military, power companies, forestry, mining... pretty much anything you can think of, a ’Mog can do. Which is why it’s still going coming up to its 80th birthday.

And brings us to the car you see in the pictures, looking like it crash-landed just outside of Gaggenau in Germany, near to the excellent Unimog Museum. The official name is the Unimog U4030 4x4, and it’s supposed to be a concept to celebrate the anniversary. But it’s also promised to a certain famous individual who we’re not allowed to talk about, in case we get... uh... terminated.

Still, what you’re looking at is a collaboration between Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks division and a company called Hellgeth Engineering to produce a very special ’Mog.

The outside features matte grey paint, LED head and tail-lights and digital rearview mirrors for both pillars and middle screen. There’s a voluminous pickup bed, a massive roll-hoop and a roofrack that sits about 12 feet off the floor.

Still recognisably a Unimog, just one that looks a bit more Battlestar Galactica than utility company worksite. It’s the angular, lightly science fiction steel and aluminium panels that do that job – not root-and-branch changes to the structure – it’s all just bolt-on styling, but enough to make you wonder.

Inside, it’s possibly pushing the ‘luxurious’ tag. Yes there are four quilted leather air-sprung seats, though they’re just the normal seats reworked. The engine cover in the middle looks like a quilted leather coffin, and the roof panels are just more diamond patterned leather slapped over some LED striplighting.

The rest is pure Unimog – so bits of Mercedes truck stitched together with prosaic rather than posh dash elements and switches. You still address the wheel in the manner of a Routemaster bus, still have the mule icon for the low range ’box, still have a map light on a two-foot bendy straw. It’s nicer than the standard Unimog, but Maybach engineers will not be losing any sleep.

The leathery bits aren’t really the point, though. The view out is tremendous. You’re sat roughly eight feet up with blind spots you can lose streets in, although the screens on the A-pillars actually show you what’s down below your hips as well as the rear three-quarter of the truck, with the centre rearview mirror showing what’s directly behind. It means if you’re swivelling your head enough, vision isn’t quite the problem you might think it is. Drop it into drive, and you’re away. Albeit slowly.

The heart is a Hellgeth-tuned 300bhp, 7.7-litre straight six diesel with 1,033lb ft of torque. That might not sound like much for the size, but given that the Unimog has crawler gears, the torque multiplication means it could pull/push the skin off the actual planet and then drive on the molten rock.

Pretty much anything you can think of, a ’Mog can do

Mind you, at over 10 tonnes, it means this ’Mog has the power-to-weight ratio of an original Renault 4. Zero to 62mph is possible, in a time of ‘yes’. Top speed is about 70mph downhill, but you’ll want clear sightlines and plenty of time to stop.

The gearbox is pneumatic, and has a kind of disengage, pause, engage style of operation that you get in things that usually tow multi-tonne loads, which is to say that patience isn’t so much virtue as necessity. The steering is twirly, numb and easy, the suspension of the type that rocks several times if you stop too quickly and lists like a drunken galleon on roundabouts.

It’s comfortable and quiet at a cruise, but also takes much, much longer to stop than you think. By most metrics, on a road, away from rough ground, it’s rubbish. And yet it’s a Unimog, so it’s one of the best vehicles I’ve ever driven.

It is, without doubt, one of the most ego massaging things ever conceived by humans. Celebrity is easily bought with the 4030. Calmly chewing through a local suburb, a young man at a bus stop literally leaped to his feet and began to cheer, arms raised. Navigating through traffic, you feel like a giant. People wave and smile and generally get very excited in a way they don’t seem to with a hypercar unless they’re under 12 years old.

Saying that, parallel parking is best undertaken very carefully, you can’t use a drive-through or underground car park and it’s best not to get too cocky, but you can look into first floor windows and everyone lets you out of junctions. It would make an excellent daily driver, in my opinion, as long as you can stomach single digit mpg.

And that might be something to consider: during strenuous work, it’s possible that the 4030 actually uses more than a gallon per mile. The payoff is that when you want to go somewhere off road, this Unimog is of the crow flies navigation type; you just point it in a direction and press the throttle, more or less. Roll to a full stop. Engage the low ratios via a button on the dash, add a garnish of middle, rear and front diff-locks for preference, then just waddle at things.

Grades that you’ll struggle to walk up? Debris fields made up of rocks the same size as a Citroen Ami? Water crossings up to a metre deep (or much more with the addition of the wading kit)? It’s all within the design parameters as standard. Things will be climbed, waded or stomped into inconsequence. And that’s the key here.

The U4030 4x4 might look like a concept, but it’s a fancy cloak wrapped around one of the most iconic pieces of product design since Concorde or the VW Beetle. It might not be the most famous vehicle on the planet, but it’s the workhorse that puts all others to shame.

Unimog U4030 4x4

Price: €750,000 (est)
Powertrain: 7.7-litre straight six turbodiesel, 300bhp, 1,033lb ft
Transmission: 8spd EPS, AWD, low range, x3 locking differential
Performance: 0–62mph in yes, 68mph
Weight: 10.1 tonnes