The Hunt for a UniMog

The decision had been made – we were going to buy a new overland vehicle that would provide more space for us to live inside once we left Africa and started travelling through colder and wetter climates across the rest of the world.

The only choice of vehicle that we both agreed would work for us was the Mercedes UniMog, an iconic vehicle that is hard to match in terms of off-road capabilities and which is also renowned for its quality and reliability.

UniMogs have been around for decades, the first one coming off the production line in 1948 – a nice quirk of fate as that is also the year the first Landrover came into existence.

Since then they have been used for anything and everything. They are military trucks, farm vehicles, emergency services vehicles and rescue trucks

They are also occasionally used as overland trucks

From our perspective it was the perfect choice, the UniMog offered everything we needed. We wanted something iconic, reliable and capable off road. Whilst we needed more space inside, we wanted to stay as small and flexible as possible and at 7.5 tonnes, less than a metre longer than Henry and only half a metre wider, a UniMog was about as small as we could go.

The big change would be height – including his roof box, Henry is 2.45m tall. A UniMog with a habitation box on the back would be over 3.3m. Life in a UniMog would be very different.

It took some time to get to grips with the world of UniMogs. There are so many different models all with pros and cons. We had learnt from travelling with Henry that the fewer complicated electronics the vehicle had the better – maintenance, diagnosis and repairs are all far easier with a simple, mechanical truck. We wanted no ad blue, no ECU, no sensors, no clever fault diagnosis tools. We wanted something we could fix on the side of the road with basic tools, something that a mechanic anywhere in the world would understand.

That pointed us in the direction of the U1300 model. Made between the mid 1970s and mid 1990s it would be a very old but very simple vehicle. The only problem was power and speed – a U1300 would need a variety of upgrades to allow it to be a comfortable drive on public roads

Eventually we realised that the later U1550 model incorporated all the upgrades a U1300 would require whilst still not having any pesky electronics. They were manufactured between the early 1990s and the mid 2000s – still old but a little less so. A U1550 would be a lot more expensive to buy but once we had taken the cost of the upgrades to a U1300 into account there was little in it.

So we concentrated our search on both models.

At first we were hoping to find a vehicle that was already converted into an overland camper. The idea was to buy it, do some minor refurbishment to make it our own and continue our travels without too much delay.

James spent weeks getting into the UniMog scene, joining forums and networking groups, pouring over the for sale sites. He found a few options in Germany and the UK. The prices frightened me but if we were going to do this we needed to do it properly.

Over the next few weeks, the options whittled down to just three and we started to wonder whether it was realistic to buy something that someone else had converted. Our standards were high, we planned to live in the vehicle not just holiday in it and we had enough experience of that to know what works and what doesn´t. The vehicle we bought was going to have to be very special.

So we also started looking into buying a standard UniMog and converting it ourselves. Suddenly our costs sky-rocketed as did the length of time we would need to be in the UK working on it – but did we really want to spend the rest of our lives living and travelling in something that would never be quite right?

I hoped that one of the three ready-built UniMog campers James had found would work but knew in my heart that he would not be happy with anything someone else had built.

We contacted a UniMog specialist in Germany who sold both converted and unconverted vehicles. They were very helpful and sent us details of everything they had

We also contacted a UniMog dealer in the UK who did likewise.

By the time we flew to the UK for the Christmas break of 2023 we had two private sellers to see who were selling ready-made UniMog overland campers, an appointment to see the UniMog dealer in the UK and flights booked from London to Stuttgart to see the German UniMog people.

James went on his own to see the two private sellers. I was keen to spend time with my family and knew that the likelihood of either being right for us was low.

My gut feeling had been right. James came back shaking his head in despair. The vehicles had needed too much renovation to give us what we needed – they would not do at all.

So we set off to see the UK UniMog dealer. They were a long drive away in Lancaster so we booked a hotel room and there was a bit of excitement as we headed off.

But by the end of that day our hearts were in our toes. I asked James why he would want to swap our beautiful, perfect Henry for battered, old rust buckets like we had seen

He shook his head and said that he wouldn´t. It seemed that our plans were on a knife edge.

By the time we were due to fly to Germany neither of us were in a good place. A few times James suggested cancelling the trip and going back to the drawing board but we went anyway. The vehicles in Germany were in better condition than those we had seen so far but they were expensive and none had everything we needed.

One was a U1300 and we had pretty much ruled those out by this stage

One was a U1550 but had the lower roof so James struggled to sit up straight in it

Another was a converted overland truck but far too expensive for what it offered and the process and costs of importing it to the UK tipped it over the edge of being unrealistic

The final one was an interesting overland camper with a pop-up roof which we had been quite keen on although it cost significantly more than any of the others. But when we saw it in person it was old and dated and would need far more money spending on it than our budget would allow.

We returned to the UK in a black mood.

A few days later, James was yet again scouring the ´for sale´ sites when he came across an interesting advert. A farmer near Newcastle was selling an old UniMog fire engine. It was far too expensive for what it was but apart from that small fact it seemed, on paper at least, to be perfect

It was a U1550. It had the higher roof. It was built in 2001 so rather newer than most we had seen. It had a couple of fun extras including a winch on the front and a CTIS (a tyre-inflation system that allows the driver to inflate and deflate the tyres by pressing a button in the cab rather than getting out and doing it manually). And the fire service have a reputation for looking after their vehicles meticulously.

James was so excited that he called the farmer straight away. He was told that the UniMog was still available but would not hang around long as it was so good there would be a queue of people wanting it. The farmer said we were welcome to drive to Newcastle to see it but if we wanted to make sure it hadn´t sold before we got there he wanted a £500 deposit.

It was the Saturday before Christmas and we had plans with family. James knew better than to suggest we cancel anything, we had only just got here from months away plus I was still unenthusiastic about buying any UniMog at all.

He was pacing up and down the room talking to me. This was too good an opportunity to miss out on, we should pay the deposit but it was not a reasonable request by the farmer. We needed to get up there as soon after Christmas as possible. What if it sold? This could be our only chance. He didn´t know what to do for the best.

I looked at him and saw the stress he was under. His need to find a more practical way to continue travelling outside of Africa was overwhelming but so far I had left everything to him and not lifted a finger to help in any way. I was still upset at the idea of leaving Henry behind and part of me hoped James would change his mind. But my heart melted when I looked at his slumped shoulders and downcast eyes. I knew he needed my support and it was time I got on board with this properly.

I suggested that we cancel our family plans and drive there that day. He stared at me as if he thought he had misheard and then for the first time in weeks he smiled.

When we arrived at the farm we were not disappointed. The UniMog was everything the advert had claimed. We could find no rust, the body work was in an impressive condition. We test drove it around the farm, the engine and gears seemed faultless

It also looked very sweet sitting there with its blue lights and sirens on the roof and the words  ´Crowborough Fire Service´ and ´Fire Engine´ indelibly marked into its paintwork where the graphics used to be

This UniMog had spent its life as an animal rescue unit

It appealed to me to buy something that had such an interesting history.

The vehicle itself came with a flat bed and large, heavy crane on the back

We didn´t need any of this but it all came as a package and was part of the reason for the high price. We would have the additional cost of removing it all before we did anything else and then what would we do with such a large piece of equipment?

It was all just too expensive. The farmer was unapologetic and supremely confident. It is what it is, he said, you won´t get another one like this and I´ll sell it at that price very quickly.

He was probably right but he wasn´t going to sell it to us at that price. We went back to my Mum´s, calmer than we had been earlier that day but very disappointed.

We had a lovely Christmas

James spent most of his spare time looking at UniMog adverts!

We also had a good New Year

The first week of January went by and James was still watching the advert for the fire engine – it hadn´t sold.

Halfway through the second week of January James called the farmer again. This time he was more willing to talk about price. It took a few days and we had to source a third party to buy the flat bed and crane off the back – but eventually we came to an agreement.

We went back up to Newcastle to see our fire engine again. James took a thousand photographs of every inch of it and gave it a thorough going over

He was still pleased. We shook on the deal and put down a £500 deposit – we had found our UniMog.

But if finding our perfect UniMog had seemed difficult it was nothing compared to what was to come next. At some points in the build process I was convinced that the whole thing was cursed! But I am running away with myself. The first step was to actually buy it and get it somewhere where it could stay whilst we went back to Africa.

There was one big problem with our new acquisition, we were not legally allowed to drive it. There were two reasons for this – firstly, because of the crane on the back and its previous use rescuing cows and horses, it was rated by the DVLA as a 9 tonne vehicle and we only have licenses to drive up to 7.5 tonnes. Secondly, as a registered fire engine it could only be driven on public roads by members of the fire service.

There is a Mercedes dealership in the UK called South Cave Tractors who specialise in UniMogs and other agricultural Mercedes vehicles. They are based in Hull and have a very good reputation. We had spoken to the manager there a few times and had developed a great deal of trust and respect for the way they did business.

South Cave Tractors had agreed to take possession of our fire engine and store it for us whilst we were away. Whilst it was there they would carry out the first few steps of the work required to convert the vehicle into an overland truck – including taking the crane off the back, buying it from us and then re-registering the remaining vehicle with the DVLA as a 7.5 tonne Private HGV rather than a 9 tonne Fire Engine. All this work was to be done before we returned to the UK in the summer of 2024.

Things started well, the farmer agreed to drive the truck to South Cave for us on his trade plates but then he decided he wanted full payment for it – including the cash element – before he did so. With him being a 5 hour drive away and our flights back to Malawi being imminent this was a problem. Just as we thought the deal was falling apart he relented and agreed that we could pay him the cash when he arrived at South Cave.

Then we found we couldn´t get our money out of our investments quickly enough to make the payment on time. Two days of me being on the phone to our investment manager ensued, begging them to release the funds. They did, eventually! But I was a frazzled mess.

And finally, in an awful twist that was going to become typical of the bizarre problems we were to face throughout this build, the poor farmer had a heart attack a couple of days before he was due to take the truck to South Cave. He survived and was kind enough to arrange for his son-in-law to meet us instead. But it was a bit of a shock for everyone.

But after all the searching, all the disappointments, all the bad luck, we were now officially the proud owners of our very own UniMog Fire Engine…

South Cave Tractors had agreed to an extensive scope of work on our new truck :

1. Carry out a full mechanical check and service
2. Re-register it as a 7.5 tonne Private HGV so that we could drive it
3. Take it through an MOT and fix any problems that arose
4. Install a second, long-range fuel tank that we would purchase and have sent to them
5. Fit a battery isolater for safety
6. Fit air feeds in the cab ready to install new air seats
7. Remove the blue lights and sirens and make a temporary fix to the holes in the roof that they left
8. Supply and fit a new, more modern, front grill and bonnet
9. Supply a new front wing to replace the only part of the bodywork that had any rust
10. Fit an immobiliser for the insurance

But the most important work for them to do was to design and build a new sub frame to fit on the chassis that would allow us to install a habitation box on the back.

This habitation box was going to be a whole new project – and bring a whole new set of problems.

We could have a box designed and built by the UniMog specialist in Germany that we had been to see but it would be empty with just walls, windows and doors. Fitting it out as a liveable unit was a different story. We all know that James has the skills to do it but we had no workshop and no tools.

There were people who could do it for us but our budget wouldn´t stretch to that, we were already way over the maximum cost we had started with.

James had found a place in Durham called Adaptvan, a small, bespoke outfit who did this sort of thing to a high level of quality. The owner had understood our predicament and kindly offered to let us use his workshop and tools, park a caravan in the yard to live in during the fit-out and have two hours of his time each day to help with the work. The weekly cost of this was high but manageable as long as we kept the fit-out to ten weeks or less.

So, after settling our new fire engine in at South Cave, we went up to Durham to meet Lewis at Adaptvan. He was very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable and his workshop was ideal. We felt comfortable with him so agreed the final piece of the jigsaw.

By the time we flew back to Malawi we had spent eight weeks in the UK, the longest we had been there in three years. But we had achieved miracles and – most importantly – the Sidetracked team officially had a new member.

Henry was no longer an only child!