Adventuremobile Spotting: Mercedes Benz T1 310 4x4

We stumbled across this beauty at Mt Rose, Nevada in the western United States. We believe it belongs to Alaskawagen. Sporting Alaskan plates much like the VW 4x4 spotted the same week in nearby Reno. Possibly the same owner? Anyhow, before the Mercedes Sprinter you had the T1. These seem to be all over the world except in the USA. Made from 1977 to 1995 this was a van and truck called the “Transporter” or simply as the T1. Later when the Sprinter came out it was called the T1N which stood for Transporter Neu"

In Germany, Switzerland and Austria the T1 was used for all sorts of applications. The 4x4 versions were special purpose built for use with the fire department.

Most of these vans had the same Diesel as the G wagon. But this one was the 310 which means it’s a 3.1 gasoline engine. Diesels back in the day weren’t known for dealing with the cold very well. So many of the 4x4 models who saw alpine and snow use were spec’d with petrol motors.

As we understand the conversion was performed new in Austria by Oberaigner Powertrain GmbH, an approved upfitter/partner for Mercedes-Benz.

The 4x4 system is based on the W460/461 Series Mercedes GWagen and includes:
711.110 Iron Box 5 Speed with 1:6.15 first gear and 1:1 fifth gear.
VG-080 shift on the fly GWagen Transfer Case, operated pnuematically by an on board compressor system.

This particular van was really cool. A dual slider (left and right sliding doors) Crew Cab van. The snorkel was the part of the conversion originally, but you can see with this that it’s had an additional rear side window added and the roof top awning.