Multicar for value
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Thanks for the many positive things you had to say about the multi-purpose nature of the Multicar in your Testers' Choice feature (CM 13-19 February).
It can indeed be used with a wide variety of different bodies and equipment, especially now that the quickrelease swap body system is available.
But I would not agree with your tester's decision that the
Unimog "can do all the things the other two can and do them better" and "we can think of no other 4x4 that can match the Unimog's offroad capabilities or offer the same vast equipment list".
I believe the Multicar would go very nearly anywhere the Unimog would, and, as you point out, sonic places that the Unimog would not, as the Multicar is slimmer.
For its size, the Multicar offers a good payload potential and its factory-fitted hydraulics can power just about any equipment you could think of to mount on it, sonic available as a package deal from Multicar, plus many others from other sources.
In the Testers' Choice of panel vans, you appear to take value for money into your "all-round competence" criteria. As you say, the Unimog is "probably the most expensive 4 vl workhorse on the market but in our opinion it's probably the best". I would suggest that it's a lot more expensive for a very small gain in performance "in extremis".
I would not criticise the Unimog, it is an excellent vehicle, but I would suggest that for the majority of potential users it is overspecified and not such good value as the MuRican
Perhaps Multicar and Mercedes-Benz could get together with CM for a "head-to-head" test some time to see just what both of these admirable vehicles can do, taking into account price, manoeuvrability, fuel economy incl factors other lhan all-out off-roadability. I would he happy to to assist in this. Mike Forbes, It In/hewSpczialtarzclige.