Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

You'd have to be on coke to take a $90k vehicle off roading regardless of what side of the pond you're on.

 

That depends. Real off-road vehicles are expensive, everything has te be designed and build to withstand getting a serious beating in off-road conditions.
Look at this Mercedes 6x6 G-wagon, build to confirm with military specifications:



It has portal axles, and there's nothing hanging out from under the axles. And by the way, it will cost you way more as a mere $90k.

 

I've seen quite a few of these in the US and Canada. And tow/crane truck or gantry crane at dealer to lift the trucks off.

I assume this is a common way to transport new trucks to the dealer.

Do you also use trucks like the european ones as in the pictures shown here over the last couple of days? So drive the new truck onto a transporter truck, similar like car transporters.
Or are all (the majority) of trucks transported piggy-back style?

 

agree on this,

my cousin own wrangler rubicon, 2door, 37inch tires, some custom suspension, he put slow diffs and mb 3l diesel engine, winch etc. now this is quite serious.....
but also some low components on front axle same as on this pick up, however he made housing of 5mm sheet to protect it.

true, however some seriously rich people do this, here people usually buy suzuki jimny it is cheap and quite good, with few mods it can be quite good. or lada niva cheap and you dont care for it capable for offroad and always have some failure

only portal axles conversion cost 80 000€ if i remember correctly.

 

Yes, indeed. Although it looked a lot better when it was still called LJ80. I even drove a very early one with a two-stroke engine many years ago.

This may provide a cheaper solution:
Bolt-on portals - Tibus Offroad -

 

gigaspace is 4.00m or little bit under depends on suspension and tires, they dont longer load them on trailer, anything above 3.85 is automatically sent by wheels

they dont you simply made it by yourself.

also unimog dont longer exists in this form, and if you want them to make you one will cost much more than to simply cut it apart

those things as trucks are quite rare, some used on low platform trucks , some used to transport forklifts, and for airport snowplow/jet/sweeper trucks.

now in recent few years they raise chassis for about 250-300mm on those trucks and raise transfer case above chassis level so it makes clear room for equipment underneath chassis
btw thanks for brochure front, do you know where i can find whole?

seems like it is not, Daf105paccar told me several years ago that they do have one with low front(like rwd truck), it must be mistake.

i was thinking if they maybe use inverted portal axle (maybe something like in city buses).

here one company made boat transport rigid chassis which would be used with 2axle low frame trailer extendable drawbar, V shape in cab, V type crossmembers on chassis etc.
...to be able to load 2x 9m boats....
idea was to use city bus axle for better clearance for boat tail, but it would be too much problems with ratio, and linkage possition.....this end up with double overdrive g240-16 gearbox, small 233mm hub reduction axle, suspension of low liner tractor and 315/45 tires.



on this photo you can see blue thing where is chassis cutted, just in front of xf, blue thing is offset box to move driveshaft lower, here none of trucks have this so driveshaft is always white, they all have driveshaft carrier/bearing moved forward and lowered down so driveshaft is tilted to save some space. pink color represent driveshaft

 

I wonder how they do that with braking (incl. ABS) and lights.

 

I just stuffed a lift kit in my old pickup after it was worn out. Truck may have been worth $38k new (in 2000) but with close to 300k km on it the best one could hope for is $2,000 on a trade in. May as well have some fun with it bushwacking.

 

The old ones are fun, if you bust it it's not a HUGE loss.

 

Btw new g is going out soon just 11 days...i am sad for old one already....seen it 6months ago