Park City, Utah welcomes roughly 4 million tourists a year, who spend over half a billion dollars in “the best resort town in America.” During the ski season, the economy depends on roadways being cleared to get skiers to the resorts, not to mention the Hollywood crowd during the yearly Sundance Film Festival held in January. There’s just one problem: Park City’s roads are very steep and narrow, and were developed during the mining boom in the late 1800s. At 15 feet wide, they’re difficult for modern trucks to plow.
It turned out the solution to keeping the town moving involved looking to Europe, home to roads similar to those found in Park City. Enter the taxpayer-funded nearly new fleet of Mercedes Unimogs operated by the Public Works Department that plow Park City’s challenging roads.
The newest ‘Mogs in the fleet are the range-topping, fully-locked U530 model from 2018. Park City ordered them through Holland Equipment and took delivery two years later. They’re registered as agricultural equipment, and that’s befitting of the Unimog because it got its start on the farm.
The Unimog entered production in the late ‘40s in, a time when Germany was forbidden from building machines that could be used for its own military purposes. The Boehringer Brothers Machine-Tools Factory in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany was responsible for the early models before Mercedes moved production to the Mercedes Gaggenau Plant. Naturally, the Unimog served Germany’s agricultural industry. It was conceptualized as a tractor that could be used on public roads, making it incredibly versatile. Furthering the workhorse nature of the Unimog was the included PTO system, or “power take off” that was used to power all sorts of farm equipment. Now, well over half a century later, it’s still doing the same thing.
Unimogs are a common sight on European roads. Most public utility departments use them for everything from street sweeping to duty as dump trucks on construction sites. The Unimog is equipped with portal axles, meaning the center of the axle isn’t in line with the center of the wheel, instead it’s lifted, creating plenty of ground clearance. Together with low gearing, it means there are few jobs the Unimog can’t do. The town looked at a variety of trucks when building their plowing fleet, but nothing else on the market aside from the Unimog–which isn’t technically “on the market”— met the very specific requirements needed to meet the challenges presented by the narrow mining roads of Park City’s Old Town. Prior to the 2018 Unimogs, the city purchased Unimogs from Denver Airport after they had been taken out of service. Some of those early-2000s models are still operated alongside the new models.
Only a small number of Park City Public Works drivers are certified to drive the ‘Mog, and they go through a special training program developed in-house. The steering wheel can be configured in LHD and RHD by sliding it across the dashboard, but for the Public Works drivers, it’s usually in RHD. When plowing, there’s such little clearance on the roads that it’s easiest to visually monitor the distance between the edge of the plow and parked cars from the right side of the cabin. Drivers note that the transition from operating a standard plow truck to the Unimog is quite different, because the driving position is much, much higher. Sitting up high and working on small mountainside roads can give drivers the impression the vehicle can easily tip over the edge of the road, even though it’s firmly planted.
Maintenance used to be performed locally by Freightliner, but since they’ve closed down their operation, the Park City Public Works team has moved it all in-house. Parts aren’t easy to get, but between Holland Equipment’s parts network and sourcing from Germany, they make it work.
While plowing is the primary function of the ‘Mogs, it has certainly come to Park City’s aid in other ways. One Unimog operator described a situation where an elderly person needed help during a snowstorm, but no vehicles could reach their house in Old Town. The snow was just too debilitating for the town’s emergency service vehicles to respond. While the Unimog was out plowing, it stood in as a rescue and recovery vehicle and ferried first responders to the scene. It was the only vehicle out that day that could make it there, and it made all the difference.
On top of getting a fresh layer of powder, known as “the greatest snow on earth” to locals, skiers have another reason to pray for snow storms: They’ll be able to catch a glimpse of Park City’s beloved Unimogs in action keeping the streets clear while everyone else enjoys their Après-ski.