The Chassis
The expedition truck was designed by the owner and built by UNICAT according to their patented all-over technical design of booth, bridge and chassis in 1996/97 on short wheel-base MAN L27 4-wheel-drive 10 ton chassis registered as 7,49 t.
Three differential locks and reasonable ground clearance on single Michelin XZL tires empower driving through deserts and across mountains worldwide. Diesel engine comes with 220 HP and ZF-16 gearbox plus reduction gearing and four Diesel tanks with 860 l in total. A long driver cab and air conditioning provide comfort. Cab mounting, axles, springs plus stabs reinforced, same for engine cooling.
500 l fresh water supplies, 70 l waste water and Dometic vacuum toilet with 40 l fecal tank plus 170 l fridge and 30 l deep freeze. Cooking with Webasto Diesel cooker, water heating system Eberspächer Diesel, booth battery capacity 400 Ah/12V, chassis battery capacity 150Ah/24V, solar cells max 200 W. A 1000 W 12V-220V converter was provided.
UNICAT is a producer of luxury off-road vehicles. UNICAT design enables movement between both, booth and chassis, under off-road conditions. UNICAT mounts the booth on a special UNICAT bridge connected to the truck chassis at four points in total. Front and rear of the bridge end in 2 cross members connected to roll bearings on the chassis enabling longitudinal roll beween cabin and chassis.
Two additional bearings retain the chassis right and left and prevent the cabin from extreme roll using frame distortion as a spring-damper-system. No additional damping provided.
As shown on the photos below, Diesel tanks and coffers were not mounted to the frame but fixed to the bottom of the cabin resulting in higher capacity and extreme frame torsion because of cabin roll with full tanks turning out to be a problem under severe off-raod conditions later.
First tests showed, however, that UNICAT bridge, frame and cabin design was neither lightwheight nor suitable to offroad conditions but caused a lot of problems wolrdwide.
The Booth
…in tripartite design provides reasonable comfort for 2 long distance travellers: Classic seating compartment in front, kitchen, multi use entrance/bath/shower plus toilet and cupboard in the middle, high mounted double bed in the rear. Excessive storage in the cabin and in chassis mounted coffers holding spare tire, Diesel generator, tools and spare parts.
5 windows plus 2 roof hatches and white colours guarantee for lightness in the booth.
Up to date the truck has seen about 60 countries travelling 200.000 km worldwide, average fuel consuption was 19l/100km.