Mercedes-Benz Unimog by Lego – Click above for high-res image gallery
Can we build it? Yes we can! Before the Obama campaign pilfered the slogan, it belonged to the kid's show "Bob the Builder." But it could just as easily be applied to Legos. Or the perhaps even the Mercedes-Benz Unimog.
The versatile utility vehicle celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, and to help celebrate, the Danish brick-toy company has come out with an intricate working reproduction in 1:12.5 scale. The Lego Technic Unimog packs an unprecedented 2,048 parts – the most in any Lego kit to date – and packs all the working elements you'd expect to find in the real full-size thing: It's got a winch, a pneumatic crane, a reproduction of the engine with moving pistons and the whole shebang.
The kit is based on the U400 model and goes on sale in Europe in August with a list price of 190 Euros – about $275 by today's rates. In other words, a lot less than the 380,000 Unimog owners have paid for theirs over the course of the vehicle's six decades of production. Follow the jump for the press release and check out the trio of high-res images in the gallery.
Also, consider this the number one item on our end-of-the-year holiday wishlists...
Mercedes-Benz Unimog celebrates 60th Jubilee - Mercedes-Benz and LEGO® - first time cooperation: Unimog the biggest Technic model of all time
Wörth/München, Jun 01, 2011
- Design true to the original and just like the real thing
- real functions reproduced in LEGO format
- 2048 modules thrill adult LEGO fans
Wörth/München – Anyone who always dreamed of owning his own Unimog now has the chance to put one in his garage: The first do-it-yourself Unimog U 400 (1:12,5) will be on offer from August on: The LEGO Group, the world's third largest toy manufacturer, has created a model with 2048 elements – up to now the largest LEGO Technic model in the company's history. The impressive vehicle which links a combination of electric drive and pneumatics has been produced in exlusive cooperation with Mercedes-Benz as a true adaptation of the original down to the smallest details. As the world ' s most versatile workhorse, the Unimog pushes snow away in winter, mows motorway embankments in summer or helps to construct new roads. The so-called " Power Functions " run the pump of a pneumatically operated crane with a gripper arm that can rotate almost 360 degrees. With its gripper and the front winch, the Unimog can move any load out of the way. In addition it also has a serviceable control system and an engine which is accurate in every detail right down to the pistons. The gear unit provides good ground clearance just like the portal axles in the orginal, an individual suspension deadens jolts and the four-wheel drive guarantees mobility off-road as well. For winter use, the crane and winch can be converted into a huge snow plough. The LEGO Technic Unimog U 400 will be available from toy retailers from August on as well as from Mercedes- Benz and it costs about 190 Euros.
Mercedes-Benz Unimog celebrates 60th Jubilee
This top LEGO model comes just at the right time for the two big jubilees that the Unimog is celebrating at the moment: 60 years ago, on 3 June 1951 to be exact, the first Mercedes-Benz Unimog was created in Gaggenau and in December 2010 the 10,000th Unimog from product range U 300/U 400/U 500 rolled off the band at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Wörth. A unique vehicle concept had been created with its outstanding off-road mobility due to its four-wheel drive and fast driving features on the road. Since then the Unimog has proved its worth not only for winter services, caring for green areas or for various work in horticulture and landscape gardening – they are also used for fighting forest fires and planting trees, digging ditches and drilling holes in the ground, as well as shunting on railway lines and disaster intervention over impassable country.
Altogether more than 380,000 units of the "Universal-Motor-Geräts (tool)" have rolled off the line. In the early days, the Unimog was produced in Gaggenau, but since 2002 it has been produced in Wörth. Daimler AG is celebrating this jubilee in 2011 with a whole variety of events.
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