- Readers of “Off Road” magazine have voted the Unimog the year’s best cross-country vehicle in the “Special-Purpose Vehicles” category
- Unimog takes first place with an outstanding 37.9 % of readers’ votes
Stuttgart/Munich – For the sixth time running, readers of “Off Road” magazine have voted the Mercedes-Benz Unimog the year’s best cross-country vehicle in the “Special-Purpose Vehicles” category. The Unimog picked up the title of “2010 Cross-Country Vehicle of the Year – Special-Purpose Vehicles Category” after the December issue of the respected Munich-based all-wheel-drive magazine invited readers to vote for a selection of vehicles with off-road capability in a total of eight categories.
The OFF ROAD Obelisk award was presented during a special gala evening held at Munich’s “Das Schloss” theatre tent. Over 48,000 votes were cast to select the winners among the 97 vehicles nominated by the organisers. The Unimog was the top-scoring model among the special-purpose vehicles with an outstanding 37.9 % of the readers’ votes.
The eight categories for which readers where invited to cast their votes were “Cross-Country Vehicles”, “Luxury Cross-Country Vehicles”, “Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs)”, “Luxury SUVs”, “Classics”, “Pick-Ups”, “Special-Purpose Vehicles” and “Crossover Vehicles”. Among the special-purpose vehicles – cross-country vehicles used for transporting loads and cargo in remote areas or as a basis for special bodies used by fire-fighters, expeditions and the military – the Unimog easily led the field.
Its signature product characteristics, such as its portal axles which provide outstanding off-road capability and its tremendous torsional flexibility combined with exceptional ruggedness and strength, came in for particular praise.
Produced at the Wörth plant since 2002, the high-mobility U 4000 to U 5000 Unimog range is the natural choice for difficult all-terrain operations far from roads and tracks. Its principal applications are in the domains of fire-fighting (especially in the context of forest fires), disaster relief, expedition transport as well as service and maintenance work in areas where access is difficult. As the saying goes: “Unimog vehicles get through where others cannot even get in”.
The Unimog U 4000 and U 5000 models are therefore the ideal complement to the all-terrain implement carriers which make up the U 300 to U 500 range and which are used principally by public service organisations and municipal contractors as well as in the construction and energy sectors, in intra-plant transport applications and for road/rail work. The latest addition to the Unimog family is the compact U 20, which was launched in 2008.
The legendary G-Class also emerged as a firm favourite with the readers: it was voted into first place in the “Luxury Cross-Country Vehicles” category. Another G-Class, in “Edition Pur” guise (produced in 2009 to mark the 30th anniversary of the model series) took second place in the “Classics” category with the same ranking being attained by the M-Class in the “Luxury SUVs” category.
Off-Road magazine has been inviting its readers to vote for the cross-country vehicle of the year since 1982.
