Hi Shinnlinger,
Thanks for your questions. I'll give answering a crack. First off, know that I don't own a conventional tractor, never have, although I grew up with a '40's vintage farmall that belonged to my dad so it will be hard for me to compare the unimog to a more modern tractor from personal experience. I think I'll just go over my logic for purchasing a unimog, and then tell the story of the farmer that I bought it from and give his perspective. Sorry for the *very* long story...but you asked!
I live in a snow belt in NW Montana. We usually have 3 feet plus on the ground by mid January. I and my few neighbors used to clear our lane (and personal driveways) with truck-mounted snowplows. The problem with plows of course is that when the berms get to be 4' high or so, then plows do little good as there's nowhere to push the snow. We used to resort to calling in heavy equipment in mid-winter and sometimes again towards spring, usually a large dozer or wheel loader, graders didn't work that well. Well, this was expensive, inconvenient, and didn't prevent the neighborhood from getting stranded when it would snow for a week straight.
I decided a snowblower was the answer to our problems, as it could cast the snow over the banks and the road could be kept open. To that end I looked into hydraulic snowblowers for skidsteers (I have an older ASV Posi-Track) but at $6K + found them to be too expensive for one attachment. I looked around at a few of these units and figured I could build one myself. To that end, I started learning about "computer numeric control" (CNC) and stepper motors and such in order to build a gantry cutting system for my plasma cutter. This would let me cut the metal shapes that I would need to build the blower with a good degree of precision. I built it and then built the blower. The blower worked better than I expected and I still use it today, but even though it uses both of the posi-track's aux. hydraulic circuits ( probably close to 40 gpm max.), I found it could use some more power, especially when clearing a mile of road.
So what to do? I got my hands on an old perkins diesel and set about cobbling together old hyd. pumps, tanks, valves to build a hydraulic power unit to power the blower. The power unit and the blower head would weigh in the range of 2200-2500 pounds, which brought me to the next issue: where could I find a vehicle sprung heavily enough to deal with that weight?
It was at this time that I thought of the Unimog, and knew it could handle the load with ease. But how to justify the cost? Well we were about to start building our cabin in a remote spot up near the Canadian border. One thing we could use for sure was a backhoe to dig the foundation and septic, and not a toy. I looked at the skidsteer attachment backhoes and considered most to be toys. The ones that were truly heavy duty and had 8'+ digging depth were very pricey, in excess of $7K. I thought about buying a used backhoe loader, but they were pricey, would require a big equipment trailer to transport, and a big truck to pull that...plus it wouldn't help with the snow issue. I had seen backhoes on unimogs, and the unimog could drive itself to the job, no need for trailer or truck, and it could help with the snow problem.
So I started shopping for a Unimog. I was lucky to find one quickly, and it had a backhoe! I bought the pair from a farmer/unimog dealer in Nebraska for $13K as I recall. I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find a pair like this for less than $20k today however. Shortly after I bought the Unimog, a friend alerted me to an industrial snowblower head and power pack located down in Ketchum, Idaho. I got it for little more than the cost of transportation and, although it was a bit of work to adapt it to my unimog, it works fantastic. At this point, there was no sense in building the perking power unit (it now powers a genset). All my problems were solved.
Now, about the guy I bought it from and his reasoning for owning unimogs. He's a soybean farmer down in Nebraska working the family farm. The soybean market in the late '80s was not good to him and he found himself facing loss of the family farm. To stay afloat, he was left to auctioning off some of his equipment, but this posed the problem of how to continue the business of farming.
It was this pressure that forced him to consider the unimog. He purchased his first one, complete with backhoe,loader, and 3 pt. He was able to sell some trucks, tractors, sprayers, and backhoe and was able to stay afloat and still runs his soybean operation to this day. His "born again" experience with the unimog led him to eventually owning several, and now he has a side business in selling and servicing them. His son is supposed to be one of the top unimog mechanics in the country.
So I guess my advice would be if it is truly a tractor you are looking for, then a tractor is probably a good choice. They're generally cheaper, and certainly easier to service and find parts for. If you're looking for a more versatile machine, then consider a unimog.
Below are some pics of the unimog and backhoe. It's no toy. I guess I should mention that J.I.Case imported unimogs, and put their own rear deck on them, added 3 pt. hitches, and offered some attachments like backhoes, trenchers, etc. The backhoe on mine is a Case Extendahoe, the same as used on one of their '70's vintage loader backhoes.
Why aren't there more of them out there? Don't know. Case gave up on them after about 10 years. From my perspective, part of it is where the tractor market has been going. It seems to me that the market has diverged with the decline in the family farm. Now the major markets seem to be a.) smaller tractors for hobby farmers and rural homeowners, and b.) very large commercial farm operations requiring very large, powerful, and specialized equipment. The Unimog fits between those two markets.
