Mercedes Unimog Concept Inspired by Poison Dart Frog

Just the Facts:

• The Mercedes-Benz "Concept Design 60 Years Unimog" celebrates 60 years of the over-the-top German utility truck and is inspired by the poison-dart frog, according to the automaker.
• The design concept is based on the U 5000 and features vibrant green exterior paint and red coil springs.
• It is not a prototype for a new product range, said Mercedes-Benz in a statement.

STUTTGART, Germany — The Mercedes-Benz Unimog concept celebrates 60 years of the over-the-top German utility truck and is inspired by the poison-dart frog, according to the automaker.

While it looks like something that would be perfectly at home at a monster truck rally and could easily be an impulse buy, Mercedes-Benz issued a statement that the clunkily named Concept Design 60 Years Unimog "is not, however, a prototype for a new product range."

The design concept is based on the U 5000 and features vibrant green exterior paint, red coil springs and oversized wheels and tires. The automaker did not disclose powertrain details.

Mercedes-Benz elected to celebrate the anniversary of the all-terrain Unimog — an abbreviation of Universal-Motor-Gerat, or Universal Motor Device — by coming up with a concept in an "extremely avant-gardist way."

Mercedes-Benz said it wanted to make observers think about "the Universal-Motor-Gerat of the future" and that the concept's crew did not "work in an atmosphere where our ideas were divorced from reality."

Designers said they were drawn to the poison-dart frog as a jumping-off point for the concept because "it is extremely mobile both in water and on land."

According to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park Web site, poison-dart frogs are named because "some Amerindian tribes have used their secretions to poison their darts."

"Not all arrow frogs are deadly, and only three species are very dangerous to humans," it notes. "The most deadly species to humans is the golden poison-arrow frog (Phyllobates terribilis). Its poison, batrachotoxin, can kill many small animals or humans. These frogs are found in Colombia along the western slopes of the Andes."

The concept was unveiled at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Worth on June 3.

Inside Line says: We say, build it.