A Unique Concept

How do you ship a vehicle if you want to explore overseas continents? You have the choice between RoRo, on a flat rack (only the floor of the container) as deck load or in a closed container.

The latter is the safest option, but a Unimog camper does not just fit in a container. How do you do that?

The camper unit is removable and fits together with the Unimog in a 40 ft High Cube sea container. This way they can be shipped safely to anywhere in the world.

A removable camper unit was chosen. In this way the Unimog together with the unit fit inside a 40' freight container. The Unimog is equipped with an electric winch so the cargo bed and camper unit can be mounted and dismounted with a minimum of equipment ( = extra weight). The exchange takes about an hour and can be done by one person.

An additional advantage: when you are not traveling for a while, the Unimog is available as a truck. The camper unit becomes a tiny house.

Exchanging the cargo bed for the camper unit (time lapse video, +/- 3 min.).

The winch (Warrior 24 volt, 4000 kg)

The original steel cable was replaced by a shorter synthetic winch rope, resulting in fewer windings on the drum. This ensures a lower speed and thus a more controllable load movement.

Mounting and de-mounting the camper unit and cargo bed involves the use an air jack which is located in the center under the anti-torsion frame. It uses the compressed air from the truck. The jack lifts the unit so 2 rollers can be fitted, in order to be able to slide the unit over the subframe. The rear bumper is used as 'landing gear', to prevent the back of the camper unit touching the ground and getting damaged.

The implementation of the concept was realized in collaboration with Alex and Paul Dickhoff. They run their own company in mobile energy systems and have workshop space for rent for DIY. Have a look at their website.

The first test. The camper unit is loaded with a 264 gallons (1000 liter) IBC filled with water.