Mercedes U500 with Alaskan Camper

[haven]

2005 Mercedes Unimog U500 with camper
6900 miles, $139,000

33,000 GVWR
190 inch extra-long wheelbase
Vario steering
CTIS
Winter package
rear hydraulic winch
motorcycle/spare tire lift

Alaskan Camper
looks like a 10 foot camper

for sale by owner in Vancouver Washington
ad posted June 16
http://www.unimog.net/exchange/

[dwh]

That's the ExPo member dzzz's Mog. He's also posted it here for sale.

If I had the cash, it would be mine in a heartbeat.

[zimm]

not allot of living space for the fuel penalty.

[dwh]

not allot of living space for the fuel penalty.

True. Sort of.

After Glen Heggstad went around the world, I played with the numbers a bit. He spent two years doing the trip (not including nearly a year doing the South American trip first). He did 50 something countries and 50 something thousand miles (again, not including the 25k miles of the SA trip).

Easy enough to ballpark that - works out to about 500 miles per week on average. If the hypothetical rig gets say 10mpg (my Class B Ford with 460 gets that), that'll be 50 gallons/week and at today's US price of $4/gallon, we're talking $200/week or $800/mo for fuel. Even if the fuel cost were doubled, that's still well within the realm of a $100/day travel budget.

I think for a truck - especially a truck intended to spend a lot of time away from paved roads - that fuel tankage and range is more important than miles per gallon. (Or top speed...it is after all, a Mog...)



Personally, I don't put a high priority on living space. The Unicat/GXV setups are nice, and possibly required if you need to take a wife along for the trip. I'm not married though (18 years a single father - I just never had the time).

So for a soloist like myself, the Alaskan/Mog setup is extremely tempting. I think sticking to Stephen Stewart's recommendation that a RTW truck should ideally be between 3m-3.3m in height would probably be the second most important consideration for me - behind CTIS. Airing up and down is so important, and such a PITA, that I would be willing to make almost any compromise to have CTIS.


I would make a couple of changes to dzzz's rig. I would turn the camper around so the door faced front, and then hang the spare tire(s) and probably a TW200 off the rear ala JRHETT's Fuso. Then I'd box in the sides of the midships gangway making the starboard side a dropside/stairway/gangplank, and put a sliding door in the back of the cab to have a walkthrough/crawlthrough from the camper to the cab. I'd probably also want a generator like Doug Hackney's rigged fore/aft on the port side of the gangway, with storage above that.


My only real gripe about the Alaskan/Mog setup is that it's not very stealthy. I'm a big fan of stealth. That could be cured by boxing in the sides to hide the Alaskan when the top is down. Boxing in the rear lift for the tires/bike would make the thing completely not resemble a camper at all when under way.

[dwh]

But with the Vario Pilot setup, stretched frame and such low miles - I personally expect that GXV will probably end up buying that truck to make another GXV.

[Carlyle]

I would have bought that six months ago.