THE LOCKWOOD REPORT

February 15, 2012 Vol. 8, No. 4

Partly because I’ve just had surgery and can’t sit at the keyboard for long, and partly because I’ve been dying to write about this truck for ages now, I’m going to drop the news and issues orientation of the newsletter this time out. In favour of simple fun. Gearheads of the world, unite!

In Mongolia, no less.

The picture you see here shows one of two wild and crazy all-wheel drive Mercedes-Benz Zetros trucks spec’d and ordered by a pair of Mongolian businessmen for hunting and… well, for fooling around in the boonies. Wealthy businessmen, it would seem.

The Zetros is in its element where all-terrain capabilities are required. It’s not only suitable as a commercial vehicle, but also as a basis for recreational and expedition use, as with these two trucks delivered last year to Ulan-Bator, the capital of Mongolia.

Mongolians apparently love excursions into the difficult and extreme terrain of their high-altitude homeland, which includes deserts, and historically only horses were a suitable means of transport. But the two friends – one of them owns a brewery while the other got rich by way of coal and copper mines – decided in favour of the Zetros as a more luxurious way to travel. Luxurious indeed.

They use their unique jumbo off-roaders for multi-day excursions into the Altai mountains, for example, where they hunt for wolves with an eagle.

As a three-axle truck with a permissible gross vehicle weight of 27 tonnes, the Zetros powertrain and chassis are based on the Mercedes Actros and Axor series. All variants use the OM 926 LA 7.2-litre inline 6-cylinder engine developing 326 hp and 960 lb ft of torque. Two transmissions are available, a 9-speed Mercedes box (eight forward gears + crawler) or a 6-speed Allison 3000. The VG 1700 transfer case for the permanent all-wheel drive sports a 1.690 off-road ratio, which makes extremely slow speeds possible, pretty important on very steep downhill stretches. Pulling power is increased by around 70% compared to the on-road gears. Torque distribution between the front and rear axle(s) is 1:3.21 in the splitter box, and 1:1 if the differential locks are engaged. The Zetros actually has three mechanical diff locks as standard, easily selected by the driver using a rotary control.

Sounds like this truck will go anywhere, and with two diesel tanks holding 500 litres of fuel all told, about 110 gal, it has decent if not extreme range.

The Mongolian duo were built at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Worth, Germany, then converted into expedition vehicles by the body specialist Hartmann in Alsfeld and interior specialist Huenerkopf in Neukirchen.