This Massive Unimog U500 Is the Ultimate Insane Mercedes Pickup Truck

Unimogs aren't slow pickups, they're fast tractors.

I watched a documentary about the Unimog a while ago and this conversation stuck in my mind: presenter: "So what is the average life expectancy of a Unimog?" Unimog official: "We don't know that yet. It has only been in production for a little over 70 years."

As a german i can help you with the buttons: 1. ABS Button = it's the antiblocking system (while offroading you didn't want the system to intervent). 2. the warning light (as you said, in germany they are mostly working vehicles, most of them have warning lights). 3. heated side mirrors btw: In germany i have never seen an unimog with automatic transmission, normaly they have at least 2 manual transmissions with at least 12 gears.

As a Unimog owner... they are not "pretty capable offroad". They are amazingly unstoppable.

“The tire on the pole” are the heated side mirrors, the other one you pressed and did nothing is the emergency light on top.

If by "Pickup Truck" you mean "it can pickup a truck" then yes, this is the ultimate Pickup Truck.

After driving MTVs in the Army, I can only imagine how fun it must be to have a truck this size for personal use. I always loved being able to see literally everything all around me, and the air brakes were so responsive compared to other vehicles with air brakes I had driven, and given the unimog's reputation I have no doubt that it's anything but better.

Doug, when reviewing specialty vehicles, do consult someone who actually uses them. Cruise control is quite important if you're driving 20 km/h with a salt spreader attached to the PTO... leaving aside the other oversights in the review of this car-shaped tractor. Also, air brakes. They don't work the same as ordinary hydraulic brakes. The pressure gauges are there to tell you whether you CAN move, as no pressure = brakes applied, and you need to wait for the compressor to do its thing.

“Outlets in the back” is actually hydraulic connectors for hydraulics on farm equipment

The coloured circles on the back and front... they're not electrical connectors, they're hydraulic connectors, that's also what the joystick is for, controlling the hydraulics, the two switches you didn't know, the first one is for a beacon, the one is for the heated mirrors, no rear window because that rear section isn't stock, from stock they would have a rear window. Hope all this helps!

Another funny thing about this specific UNIMOG-variant (there's two general variants, one for heavy off-road duties and one for communal use). With this communal variant you can usually take off parts of the dashboard and bring the steering column and pedals to the other side – the dashboard fits back in on the previous driving side – in case you are having a mowing arm attached at the front or so and you need to see what it's doing.

Imagine Doug reviews, drives and gives a Doug score to a cruise ship 1 hour and 45 minutes into the video “here in the engine room are some more quirks and features of this Carnival Victory”

37 minutes of Doug being astonished by the fact that utility trucks and commercial vehicles exist.

The “power outlets” front and rear aren’t electrical hookups, they’re hydraulic connectors to power various implements that are designed to work with the Unimog.

I've been watching a few videos of people modifying Unimogs into RVs, turning them into all-terrain mobile homes. There's something so damn appealing about that idea. Imagine being able to bring your home anywhere on planet earth.

Dug has no idea how awesome a Unimog is in the world of 4x4 owners. It’s a go anywhere 4wd vehicle.

First of all: Those "Power Outlets" are actually hydraulic ports, not electric ones. You can use them for quite a variety of hydraulic tools, like for example Snowploughs, Mowers, etc... Some of these Tools are specifically made for the Unimog and approved by Mercedes-Benz. You operate them with the Joystick (which starts to quite make sense when you think of driving with a Snowplough), after you preselected the hydraulic ports you want to use. The "Tire hanging on a Pole"-Switch is simply for heated mirrors, the Rabbit/Donkey-Switch reduces all gears of the normal gearbox about half for better torque when in Off-Road use. Cruise Control isn't really a luxury feature on an Unimog, in fact you won’t get one without it. Its main use (beside the function as a Cruise Control while driving) is to be able to keep the engine running at a certain speed in standstill. This is very useful when you use those hydraulic tools mentioned earlier (for example a crane), or when you order your Unimog with an front and/or rear output-shaft for direct engine driven tools. (Which this Unimog doesn’t have.) It’ll also probably dump a little bit faster if you rev the engine or set it to certain revs with this lever. All in all it’s quite funny to see Doug being that excited about a vehicle that is very common and seemingly known by heart from every tec-interested child in Europe. :D Ah and before I forget: you can order your Unimog with an air horn (“Überlandhorn/Overland-horn”) in addition to the “city-horn” this one has. ;-)

The outdoor “power outlets” are not electrical outlets. They are hydraulic outlets. For commercial or agricultural equipment like snowplows, snowblowers or sweepers. In Germany these vehicles are for example also used to cut grass next to roads. Or to maintain railways.

Well this Unimog is really has rather common features compared to duty vehicels here in Germany and basically seems like a fusion between the big trucks we use for delivering loads of material and the back tilts to dump stuff like Sand. Dependig on how accessible the place to unload the truck is, you decide on wich way to tilt it. The rabbit donky button is also a thing that is common in Power shovels and Wheel loaders, tho sometimes its a rabbit and a turtle, wich let you decide on how fine you can maneuver. The sunshade and other feautures we got in our Mercedes flat lorrys, the "Pritschen wagen", but they probably originated in the unimog. Love from cologne Germany, everybody have a good Start in 2023. Peace

Tons of cheap European hatchbacks used to have power windows in front but not in the back up until pretty recently. Interesting to see that that's so uncommon in the US. Also, as mentioned in the beginning, the rear cabin was added later and by the looks of it pretty custom, so yeah blame whoever added it for having no rear window, not the Unimog itself.