| The DOKA Has Found A New Home... It Will Be Missed |
SOLD: Here's a photo of a very special 1991 Unimog 1250L that we purchased a few years ago. Mercedes offered this four-door cab option for only a couple of years. It was a very expensive option and though they are not hard to find in Europe, they are very rare in the States. It's in great condition and has too many nifty features to mention here... so many that we thought we'd maintain it as a personal truck, but we just don't get the chance to drive it very much. If you took out all the seats, you'd have room for a pool table. When was the last time you came across a four-door Unimog? |
The overall length is 18 feet, 1 inch. Believe it or not it weighs in at 11,300 pounds. The bed is approximately 81 inches long, by 80 inches wide. There are no hydraulics to raise the bed and it's currently bolted to the frame in standard Unimog fashion. Yes, those are LED lights that were painstakingly added, above the windshield. We've had a number of inquiries about the 24 forward speeds. So we thought we'd explain how they work. There are three ranges, of 8 forward and 4 reverse gears per range. Yes, it really is possible to upshift four times while traveling in reverse. The three ranges consist of Road Gears, Working Gears, and Crawler Gears. There is an Auxilliary Group Shift Lever that selects between Road Gears and Working Gears. Further, there is a Working/Crawler Changeover Lever. This selects between the Working Gears and the Crawler Gears. Of course the Four-Wheel Drive and Differential Locks function in any gear range and any road speed.. To give a sense of 1st gear in Crawler Gear range, at 2,600 RPM the truck is going to move about 600 feet in an hour. Reduce the RPM's to 900 and that distance is down to 200 feet in an hour, or 3.5 feet per minute. At idle, most folks would argue that it is not even moving. |
We're thinking that it would make a terrific Type 6 Attack truck. It would be able to carry 300 gallons of water along with injected foam. What's more, it would carry five firefighters to the fire, in comfort. Yes, it is air-conditioned. All sorts of applications suit the 24 forward and 12 reverse gears. In fact, you could tow a house with it. No, we're not kidding. Imagine, if the fire were too inaccessible, you could just hook a chain to it and drag it to a more convenient location. Least we forget, there is an 18 inch ground clearance under the differentials. |
Uh oh, what's going on? We've removed both the hood and the front grill (very quick and easy to do) in order to remove the radiator. It has been leaking at the rate of a drop every few months. Lately the rate has picked up and it is time to deal with it. Montana Radiator made quick work of the repair and the folks there tell us it was minor... all due to a bad day at the factory. On a brighter note, it offers us the opportunity to get a nice photo of the engine compartment. By the way, the engine was rebuilt just prior to the truck being shipped to us from Germany. There was nothing really wrong... we had the chance to do it when the Euro Dollar was much lower, and did not want to pass up such an opportunity. Okay, so you/re wondering what is a DOKA? We have to switch from English to German here. The Unimog folks refer to it as a DO KA... short for Dopplekabine or double kabine... kabine meaning cabin. Note, this truck has four doors. In this country we'd call it a crew cab and get on with it, but Dopplekabine sounds so much more exotic. Additions include retrofitting with Optima Red Top batteries, a master battery disconnect, an air compressor connection to quickly charge the air system, and a 12 volt accessory socket which we have used for a laptop computer GPS.. We didn't get to outfit it over the winter and we're now in fire season. |