History
The Unimog was quite successful, except as originally intended as an agricultural platform. Daimler-Benz produced a new vehicle in 1972, the MB-trac, to be more oriented to larger scale mechanical farming. The new tractor crossed the Unimog technology of all-wheel drive and a power transmission to four large equal-sized wheels, with the appearance of a tractor: slim hood, behind it an angular, highly rising driver cab. In contrast to conventional tractors, the cab is situated between the axles, similar to large "four wheel drive" wheel loader - however, the steering is realized not by an articulated front and rear, but with a normal steerable front axle.
From the initial MB-trac 65 and MB-trac 70 (later MB-trac 700), a broad platform developed to the heavy duty MB-trac 1500 within a few years, culminating in the MB-trac 1800 intercooler shortly before production ceased. The MB-trac was reasonably successful on the market, though it did not meet the high expectations Mercedes-Benz had set on it. Daimler-Benz later merged the MB-trac with the agricultural machinery activities of Deutz AG. The manufacturing of the MB-trac series ended in 1991, when the production line was taken over by the Werner company. 41,000 vehicles were produced of the original MB-trac, 30,000 of which are still in service today.
In Belgium, the company UCA had started converting MB-trac and WF-trac machines for rail shunting purposes in 1981.
Read more about this topic: MB Trac
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)