While the MB-trac has been gaining an increasingly enthusiastic following in recent years, few have yet to tackle the restoration of one of these mammoth machines in quite the way that Jeff Burgess has.
His 900, based in East Sussex, made its public debut at the 2024 National Vintage Tractor Road Run at the end of March but, as I discovered, the renovation of this Teutonic giant wasn’t a particularly straightforward affair.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
It was in 1951 that Daimler-Benz took on the Unimog Universal-Motorgerat range as part of its long-term plan to create a proper farm tractor. Its first road tractor appeared in 1912, and was followed by the OE 26hp 4.2-litre single-cylinder diesel in 1928. But, with the German economy on a downward trend at that time, it was out of production by 1932.
Fast-forward to March 25th, 1968, and Daimler-Benz – the Mercedes-Benz parent company – issued a directive to instigate the development of an agricultural tractor based on the Unimog 403. By 1973 it had become
