Wolf hunting Zetros

shrub

New member
It's a pity as it seems like they sacrificed offroad capability for luxury. The rear camper seems to have no ground clearance and very top heavy. I have to say, some of Unicat's MAN chassis' and ActionMobil's are doing the same thing.
 
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LukeH

Adventurer
It's a pity as it seems like they sacrificed offroad capability for luxury. The rear camper seems to have no ground clearance and very top heavy. I have to say, some of Unicat's MAN chassis' and ActionMobil's are doing the same thing.

This old chestnut comes up so often that I'm finally inspired to mention something about it.
First of all I'm sorry if I offend, it's difficult not to when comparing sizes (see my signature).
To a pure number cruncher that knows the angles necessary to get their little Land Rover or Jeep or Hummer through certain obstacles it can seem that the off-roading ability may be compromised.
But size makes up for it!
Bear in mind that in its current state that wolf hunter can happily drive over and/or up a 60 cm step! (that's two feet in obsolete speak). Can the cars from which all those theoretical angles come from do that in stock form?
Departure angle is around 20°; horrible I hear the naysayers shout. In 90% of off road lorry driving that's plenty. My lorry came with a fixed underrun bar that only gave 14°, that didn't stop me following a friend in a Landy through some nasty dips, river beds and twisters (in fact I improved the trail because the bar smoothed it out when it scraped).
Remember that even with the "horrible" departure angle the tails of those Zetros are around 110 cm off the ground!
When you get onto 365/85/20 or similar a whole new set of rules apply. The power/weight is pathetic but the truck gets through stuff just as well. The angles are all "wrong" but the trucks happily swallow dips and steps that will tip unmodified cars.
Car owners just don't seem to get this.
The only place you're going to get a sudden transition from flat to slope greater than 20° is in a trialing situation; and if you're throwing yourself at that then you've chosen the wrong base vehicle. Look at all the Siberian river crossing videos, they're extreme but the trucks have even worse angles.

Having said all that I personally don't like the Zetros. Too much nose; stick the engine under the cab and you get an extra 150cm of living space. But that's only my take on camper building.

Now I don't want this to degenerate into a flaming session which is why I apologise again if this is taken wrongly; but to really appreciate these big beasties with their floppy chassis and poor angles you have to actually own one.
 
Ditto.
"seems top heavy" - they are not. Look at what is underneath, calculate the COG. House batteries, water, fuel, etc etc are all centered about at the level of the floor of the camper. Tipover angles calculate to 35-40 degrees. Seat of the pants would never let you get near that.

Charlie
 

cwsqbm

Explorer
Having said all that I personally don't like the Zetros. Too much nose; stick the engine under the cab and you get an extra 150cm of living space. But that's only my take on camper building.

If you think about what you said, the Zetros makes a much sense as a cab over truck. That long nose isn't going to make a difference in where the truck can go - it'd be too long for a tight trail regardless of the cab size. What the long nose gets is comfort, a lower cab and a perception of crash safety. That's why cabover trucks aren't as common as they used to be in the USA, where overall length of trucks isn't an issue.
 

LukeH

Adventurer
Camper builds are indeed such an infinitessimally small part of their client base. For a given vehicle length a forward cab gives more living space. It can sometimes enable a builder to avoid having to use a third axle because of weight distribution and proportions.
As you say overall length isn't really an issue for roadgoing applications, a fourth advantage (the three you cite are valid too) is that for a given lorry length the manufacturer can limit the payload tray length and this reduce the danger of overloading. This is totally the opposit of what a camper builder wants; he wants body length and won't get close to maximum load. Having driven both I prefer the forward cab; you can actually look down in front of the bumper, unlike with the long noses.
Too long for tight trails? I'm looking forward to surprising you; my 8 metre rig has already been places in a forest where Landy owners didn't want to go for fear of scratches (wusses). Once my box is on the back it'll be the screams of my passenger (she who must be obeyed) that holds me back, not the trees ;-)
OK some mountainous trails could be a little hairy, but I'm sure Youtube has some vids of impossibly big rigs on mountain passes I wouldn't dare take my car.
 

LukeH

Adventurer
Ditto.
"seems top heavy" - they are not. Look at what is underneath, calculate the COG. House batteries, water, fuel, etc etc are all centered about at the level of the floor of the camper. Tipover angles calculate to 35-40 degrees. Seat of the pants would never let you get near that.

Charlie

This could only come from a Unimog owner, the "seems" of a Mog is so much more alarming.
But as Charlie says, it's all down low. Hell just the axles weigh almost as much as a Landy; the CoG really isn't an issue.
Whole different set of rules.
 

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