Wednesday, June 16

“New” truck arrives

Last night Luke drove the ’Mog home. Today I got some pictures:

Humongous ground clearance is provided by putting the axles at the top of the wheel, instead of at the center. There are gears inside each wheel to allow this to happen.

I could drive my old Austin Healey Sprite under this thing without having to duck my head (kidding).

Nice fish. I don’t know why the Swiss Army puts fish on their doors, but I’m not going to argue with them.

See? It says UNIMOG. Just like I said.

Altogether a very functional package. Shifting gears requires mastery of about six levers and a cool hand, which Luke has, naturally. He demonstrated “crawl” mode last night. He got in, put the levers in the right positions, popped the clutch, then got out! The truck moved almost imperceptibly forward as the engine idled—you actually had to watch the wheels to see if it was moving at all! Wondering why such a mode would be needed, I came to the conclusion that if your army wanted to take a country without a fight, you would just drive all of your Unimogs up to their border, hook onto the border line, and slowly push your boundary into their territory! Nobody would even notice until it was too late. Brilliant!

6 comments:

Susan Hurley-Luke said...

That's quite a truck! Just as well you have a Cool Hand Luke to drive it.

PS: There are plenty of Lukes over here if you need a spare.

Pete S. said...

So now you have two Mercedes and a Porche. Truly a family that likes the finer things in life!

Pete S. said...

Pardon my spelling. I meant to write Portia, not Porche.

Karen Nooney said...

VERY NICE! I love the truck and thought moving the boarders with them is fabulous!

When are you starting up operations out at the Ranch?

Tom Hurley said...

Pete: The orange car is a Porterville.
Karen: Today.

K Nooney said...

Tom - from the house of "new-knees" Ginny and I extend our best wishes to you and the family for a fulfilling, fun-filled and profitable summer!