Thursday 29th December 2011

PH Blog: let's off-road

The Unimog is complete and the Range Rover has got its tyres muddy

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Fear not, this isn't a sudden change of editorial direction and the transformation of PH into some sort of off-road fansite. But with all these Unimogs - real and Lego - and the fact I'm in a Range Rover Sport at the moment has meant my mindset has gone a bit more green wellies than Sparco race booties.

It took a while but the Unimog is now done

It's been great to hear I'm not the only one whose Christmas has been dominated by a Lego Unimog - keep the stories coming in. Mine is now complete, bar the winch. I did have some grand plans but - and it seems I'm not alone here - the amount of time these things take up hasn't gone unnoticed.

The Unimog wasn't the only off-road Merc commercial vehicle I got to drive the other week either, the Zetros truck Mercedes is introducing to the UK market also available for test drives. And, frankly, the Zetros makes even the Unimog look a bit girly. I liked the fact it had a 'proper' gearbox, even if it was so slow to operate that most times I went to change gear I actually came to a standstill before releasing the clutch again. Hearing Bedfordshire squirm and squelch beneath its huge tyres was amusing too.

Almost as amusing as the not at all posed photo of me with said Zetros.

Perhaps inspired by all this mud I've been having fun in the Range Rover Sport too. Now, it's conspicuous that in this particular corner of Yorkshire this isn't the preferred product from the Land Rover product portfolio. You can't move for Sports where I live in Hertfordshire but round here it does stand out rather. So I felt honour bound to get an authentic looking layer of grime on it and took, ah, a bit of a short cut across the moors.

Layer of mud required, and found

Arriving at one trail we met a gaggle of proper camo-clad off-roaders emerging from the woods, dripping with fresh mud and looking pretty pleased with themselves. As I remembered it this run was pretty tame, the fact they all had Unimog-spec tyres and ride height perhaps suggesting my WAG's special might be out of its depth. I got a third of the way down it and then had a sudden, and rare, moment of good sense. The ruts were only getting bigger and, belatedly, it occurred to me those guys might have had their monster truck tyres on for a reason. I hate giving up but reasoning we might be about to breach the point of no return I turned the Sport round and managed to beat a slightly tense retreat.

That it managed this even on street rubber says a lot. But I did have a pretty good incentive, that being picturing the warmth of the reception I'd have got knocking on the door of one of the moors farms and asking if they could tow my Range Rover Sport out...

Dan

Thankfully it got back up this too...

Well, the truck looks convincingly tough

 

 

[pSyCoSiS]

Oh how the Range Rover looks at home!!!

[UK952]

Get that winch onto the mog, then you can watch it pull itself across the room.
Tony

[Beefmeister]

Right, now as amazing as this looks:



It shows a lot of what's wrong with Lego these days to me. There are far too many Unimog-specific parts on that, like the bed sides and the 'bonnet' piece. I remember (this were all fields etc) when Lego only had that standard pieces and you had to make do with what you had.

The Star Wars stuff is just as guilty of these things too - the packs would be much cheaper too if they didn't use lots of custom mouldings...

[/grumbling]

Nice to see the RRS going off road - i bet 90% of the owners in Brentwood (surely the RRS capital of the world) haven't got a clue how good they actually are...

[sledge68]

on a slightly muddy track ?

my impreza wagon could do this, get the RR on a byway then it would be out of its comfort zone whilst being scrapped by overhanging tress etc

pSyCoSiS said:

Oh how the Range Rover looks at home!!!

[groomi]

Beefmeister said:

Right, now as amazing as this looks:



It shows a lot of what's wrong with Lego these days to me. There are far too many Unimog-specific parts on that, like the bed sides and the 'bonnet' piece. I remember (this were all fields etc) when Lego only had that standard pieces and you had to make do with what you had.

The Star Wars stuff is just as guilty of these things too - the packs would be much cheaper too if they didn't use lots of custom mouldings...

[/grumbling]

Nice to see the RRS going off road - i bet 90% of the owners in Brentwood (surely the RRS capital of the world) haven't got a clue how good they actually are...

Totally agree. I'd have a lot more fun recreating that using all the traditional pieces.

[UK952]

The bed is used in other models, the front panel is bricks the curved side pieces (doors) look very similar to those used in other current models - albeit in other colours http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Flatbed-Truck-8109 or http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Supercar-8070 . The chassis is mostly girders and pins which is more like mechano than traditional lego however the finished model looks a lot better than my last technic kit from 35 years ago - the car chassis (set 8530) with square pistons and the adjustable rack and pinion seats.
Tony

Edited by UK952 on Saturday 31st December 01:30

[Cock Womble 7]

[Lorry Geek]

Tell us more about the Zetros please Dan.

[/Lorry Geek]