Wikipedia
Unimog is a range of multi-purpose all-wheel drive medium trucks produced by Mercedes-Benz, a division of Daimler AG. In the United States and Canada, the Unimog was sold as the Freightliner Unimog. The name Unimog is pronounced in German and is an acronym for the German "UNIversal-MOtor-Gerät", Gerät being the German word for device (also in the sense of machine, instrument, gear, apparatus) Daimler Benz took over manufacture of the Unimog in 1951 and they are currently built in the Mercedes truck plant in Wörth am Rhein in Germany. Another Mercedes-Benz Türk A.Ş. plant assembles Unimogs in Aksaray, Turkey. Unimogs were also built in Argentina until the first years of the 1980s, in the González Catán factory.
New Unimogs can be purchased in one of two series. Medium series 405, also known as the UGN ("Geräteträger" or equipment carrier) and heavy series 437, also known as the UHN ("Hochgeländegängig" or highly mobile cross country).
The first model was designed shortly after World War II to be used in agriculture as a self-propelled machine providing a power take-off to operate saws in forests or harvesting machines on fields. It was designed with permanent all-wheel drive, with equal-size wheels, in order to be driven on roads at higher speeds than standard farm tractors. With their very high ground clearance and a flexible frame that is essentially a part of the suspension, Unimogs are not designed to carry as much load as regular trucks.
Due to their off-road capabilities, Unimogs can be found in jungles, mountains and deserts as military vehicles, fire fighters, expedition campers, and even in competitions like truck trials and Dakar Rally rally raids. In Western Europe, they are commonly used as snowploughs, municipal equipment carriers, agricultural implements, forest ranger vehicles, construction equipment or road-rail vehicles and as army personnel or equipment carriers (in its armoured military version).