Was This the World's First Diesel Truck?

There's something about firsts that fascinates us. First president. First manned airplane flight. First solo flight across the Atlantic. First man to walk on the moon.

So I found it intriguing to see this article by Cristina Mircea at Autoevolution.com about the First Diesel Truck. 

The first diesel truck was built in 1923 by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG), a company founded in 1890 by German engineer Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Their big project at the time was the development of a small, high speed engine whose speed could be regulated to go faster or slower. Their first such engine was called Daimler's Dream. They sold their first automobile in 1892, which ran on liquid petroleum. It was another three decades before DMG dropped their first diesel engine into a truck.

That first truck was a behemoth, weighing five tons and powered by a four-cylinder diesel OB 2 engine. The engine produced 45 hp at 1000 rpm. It took automaker Benz & Cie a full year to build that truck engine. (Trivia Note: In 2012 Cummins annunced it had built its two millionth diesel engine for Ram trucks alone. Mr Daimler and Mr. Diesel would be astounded at these kinds of numbers.)

According to Mircea, that first Benz diesel truck made quite an impression with regards to fuel economy when compared to petrol engines. It reduced fuel usage by 25% without losing any power. The brown tar oil that fueled it was less expensive. 

In addition to taking a year to build the engine, it actually took 12 years to design a compact engine that could work. Keep in mind there was a brutal four year war in there  which no doubt interfered some.

So it was that DMG produced its first air-injected diesel truck in 1923. Mircea writes that it took the diesel truck 10 days to get from DMG's plant in Berlin to get to their Stuttgart plant and back to Berlin. This was considered an "enormous" distance at the time, which helped sell their trucks to the public. (Today it is easily less than a seven hour drive.)

According to a Daimler media release, their "first series built diesel truck finally debuted at the commercial vehicle show in Amsterdam in February 1924." Its prechamber diesel engine had an output of 37 kW (50 hp) at 1000 rpm.

For what it's worth, DMG merged with Benz & Cie three years later (1926) to become Daimlet-Benz. "Daimler AG is now the second largest German carmaker after Volkswagen," Mircea writes.

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Links

The Autoevolution feature

Daimler Media account