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

Champion Oil Launches 5-Minute Engine Flush for Diesel Applications

In addition to their reliability over the long haul, today's diesel engines have become increasingly efficient. These benefits, however, are not a given. We as owners need to take care of our engines as well. Here's an announcement from June 15 about a new product from Champion Brands, the 5 Minute Engine Flush.

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Champion Oil, a global leader in specialty lubricants, has announced the launch of a 5-Minute Engine Flush (Part #4133) with robust solvent characteristics that cleans valves, stubborn engine deposits, sludge, varnish, plus restores lost performance. The product protects, frees sticking valves and removes harmful buildups.

Sludge buildup can be caused by prolonged oil change intervals, stop-and-go driving, or vehicle inactivity for months at a time.

Engine oil is intended to cycle through the engine, lubricating components to help keep them in good working order. Sometimes, however, the manner in which a person drives can interfere with the oil being able to do the job it was meant to do.  

For example, short trips and lots of stop-and-go driving can cause particles in the oil to become deposits in a diesel engine, which builds up over time. If this particulate matter becomes excessive, clean oil is virtually useless in removing it. 

The procedure for this 5-Minute Engine Flush is as follows. Remove a small amount of oil from the engine and add Champion 5-Minute Engine Flush, which is designed to break up carbon, varnish and sludge deposits in the engine. Take the vehicle for a test drive, or idle for 10 minutes while occasionally increasing the RPM to work the chemical throughout the engine. As the deposits are loosened they will become suspended in the oil and trapped in the filter. The vehicle is then ready for a new oil change with a new filter, thereby removing the dirt, gunk and used oil.

There are other benefits to consider. For example, if your diesel vehicle has experienced a head gasket leak where coolant has seeped into the crankcase and mixed with the oil, it is important that this is cleaned out thoroughly. 

A pre-owned vehicle with no maintenance records or recent internal engine repairs would benefit from a flush. And when there have been long intervals between oil changes, a flush would address the matter of oil getting dirtier over time with the likelihood that carbons and other particles have built up in the engine.

Champion 5-Minute Engine Flush is a highly effective cleaning product that gives engines a fresh start. The treat rate is 24 oz. for diesel applications. 

About the company: Champion Brands, LLC, is a globally recognized industry leader in specialty lubricants for over 65 years. Champion also produces and blends over 350 products including fuel, oil, engine additives, and lubricants for the racing, automotive, heavy truck,

agricultural, industrial, and specialty markets. For more information about Champion products contact your nearest Champion distributor or call Champion at 660-890-6231. Champion Brands, LLC; 1001 Golden Drive, Clinton, MO, 64735 or go to http://www.championbrands.com

2021 Champion New Products
and Announcements

Champion Brands Celebrates 65 Years in the Lubricant Business

Champion Oil's Winter-Blend Diesel Flo Fuel Additive Gets an Upgrade

Highlighting A New All-Season Air Brake Anti-Freeze from Champion Brands

Champion’s Classic & Muscle 15W-50 Motor Oil for Vintage Trucks

Blue Flame Contingency Program for Drag Racers: How to Get Your Piece of the Action

Champion Oil Seeking Diesel Vehicle Builds for SEMA 2021

Special Offer For New Champion Diesel Oil Distributors

Champion Blue Flame Diesel Engine Oil Recommended for Limited-Edition Shelby F-250 Super Baja Pick-Up

Champion Oil Introduces a Professional Grade 80% Ether Starting Fluid
Champion Blue Flame Diesel Engine Oil Supports OOIDA Members
Champion Offers Power-Shield Assembly Lube & Oil Booster to Diesel Engine Builders

Champion Launches API CK-4 Premium Heavy Duty SAE 10W-30 Diesel Engine Oil

Champion Dot 5 Brake Fluid Is Purpose Built for Classic, Antique and Collector Diesel Vehicles

 

BMW Diesel Coupe Transformed to an M2 with a Trio of Turbos. How Fun Is That?

Photo: Stefan Kotz story at Speedhunters

Philosophers have long wondered where the creative impulse comes from. Is it a fundamental part of what it means to be human? For sure, whatever direction you look, you see the fruit of this creative urge. It's certainly evident in abundance in our contemporary car culture.

The other day we came across this story at Motor1.com titled BMW Never Made an M2 Diesel, But This Guy Did, With Three Turbos. It's a story about a former BMW Master Technician who wanted to try something different, and how he made his vision a reality.

Martins details his build and motivtions.

The builder, Gary Martins, owns a shop called Grease Monkey Motors. He's a huge fan of BMWs and suffice it to say that he knows what he's doing when it comes to these cars. And its apparent that the author of the piece, Adrian Padeanu, is a car guy too. The engine itself makes your heart skip a beat. Of this he writes:

"The bigger engine was mounted without requiring any modifications to the body. Having received the nitrous treatment as well as water-methanol injection, the 3.0 diesel now pumps out 583 horsepower (435 kilowatts) and 1,070 Newton-meters (789 pound-feet) of torque. That's quite a bump from the original 381 hp (284 kW) and 740 Nm (546 lb-ft)."

Martins has a long list of modifications going on this machine. Initial visuals such as the front bumper, quad exhaust and carbon fiber rear wing project an image that exceeds expectations for this original BMW 2 Series Coupe. The rear fenders were widened to accommodate bigger wheels.

A lightweight custom-built carbon fiber hood veils the diesel engine compartment with a trunk lid made of the same material. Objective: go fast. Naturally you need suitable brakes for this kind of power, and these he borrowed from the M5 (F 10) for the front, and an M4 for the rear.

With the triple turbos adding all that extra torque, a modified transmission had to be upgraded as well. Its origin was a 330d, as is the differential and prop shaft. As Padeanu says, "The list of changes could go on forever."

Take a quick peak into the cockpit and you'll find M3-sourced front seats plus a roll cage. It's rear-wheel drive and designed to be used as a daily driver or a race car, which is interesting as well. In September, this diesel M2 will be competing in the Simola Hillclimb, South Africa's premiere motorsport lifestyle event. 

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Related Links

Adrian Padeanu's story at Motor1.com: An M2 Diesel with Three Turbos

Stefan Kotz article Forcing Three Into Two: A Triple Turbo-Diesel BMW 2 Series

Four Turbochargers Weren't Enough to Catch the Four Rings (video) 

Ferretti's Diesel-Powered Yacht Is Making Waves in the Luxury Boat Market

The Robb Report is an American luxury and lifestyle magazine that covers automobiles, airplanes, watches, yachts and even real estate. Its beginnings, however, were much narrower.

Now owned by the Penske Media Corporation, it was originally founded by Robert L. "Rusty" White as a newsletter designed to sell his Civil War memorabilia and Rolls Royces. As anyone familiar with the publication will attest, it has truly evolved. 

This past weekend the Robb Report's Boat of the Week feature focused on a cutting edge 100-foot wide-body yacht by the Ferretti Group, an Italian multi-national ship-building organization specializing in the design and production of custom luxury yachts. Ferretti's new yacht, the 1000, is not the largest it has ever built, but it has features that look to disrupt the industry. Stefano de Vivo, Ferretti Group's chief commercial officer. described it as a "crucial" design that will be "a template for other models going forward."

The article spends time detailing the spaciousness of the interior rooms. Photos give the impression that we're looking at restrained extravagance. One rule of thumb here is that design must not defeat functionality. The spaces feel big, and the ocean views are even more vast.

Our fascination with this yacht has to do with its power source. Of this the author writes, "What’s unusual is its 28-knot top speed, thanks to twin 2217-hp MTU diesels. That’s lightning fast for a boat its size." Indeed.

The yacht itself looks like it would be right at home in a James Bond film. And who doesn't like Ferretti's tag line for the 1000: A thousand reasons to fall in love. 

Full story here, with lots of nice photos: 

Why Ferretti’s New 100-Foot Wide-Body Flagship Could Disrupt Its Entire Class 

Mercedes Diesel-Powered Wolf Catches the Attention of the Robb Report

Yesterday's Robb Report carried a Car of the Week story about a reimagined Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, calling it "a wolf that's ready to prowl. Most of us a familiar with the military background of Jeeps, Land Rovers and Hummers. They were built for functionality, not style, yet the boxy look of these machines became a style of its own, spoken in a different language. 

The original G-Wagen was Germany's equivalent of the Jeep, a lightweight military transport vehicle. The G stands for Geländewagen, which translated means "terrain vehicle." The first G-Wagens were built for the Shah of Iran in the late 70s as a military transport. Though created for the Shah, who was overthrown soon after, the vehicle saw its first military use in Argentina in 1981, the year before the undeclared Falkland Islands War.

Robert Ross, the author, refers to it as a wolf in sheep's clothing, which is interesting because the G-Wagen was itself nicknamed the Wolf beginning in 1987. In other words, not every G-Wagen is a Wolf. This designation is only for those with a fold down windshield and convertible top.

The focus of this article is on the latest iteration of this Mercedes-Benz 250GD Wolf, whose embellishments clearly define it in luxury terms, not military. The vehicle is manufactured by EMC, the Expedition Motor Company and available in 49 of our 50 states.

Under the hood we have a Mercedes-Benz inline-five diesel power plant that required a customized transmission control unit (TCU) "in order to maintain perfectly smooth gear change, quiet operation and reliability." 

For an extra $7500 you can add a turbocharger for additional power.

According to Ross this beast has never been more popular. At the end of 2020 EMC had sold 400,000 of them over the years, up 100K from 2017 when they hit the 300,000 milestone. The demand is so high that people are paying more than the manufacturer's suggested retail price to get their hands on one. We're not talking pocket change. These beautiful brutes typically retail at $125,000.

But what you are getting is a labor of love, so to speak. These vehicles are produced with care with hand stitched interiors and other meticulous attention to detail. It's adorned with all the other modern accoutrements with "options that include climate control by Vintage Air, assorted bumpers, trim, winches, etc." 

According to Ross, "Other revisions that come standard are new instruments and gauges, an all-new wiring harness, premium headlamps (previously optional equipment) and an upgraded entertainment system with new Bluetooth capabilities as well as USB and device plug-in considerations."

What we like, though, is the 0M602 diesel engine. It's durability earned in a nickname of its own, :the million kilometer engine." 

Read the full story here.

Diesel Powered Vehicle of the Week: The Peugeot 908 RC Concept Car

The history of Peugeot stretches all the way back to the era of Napoleon, birthed during the Napoleonic Wars in 1810 as a steel foundry than manufactured saws and hand tools. By the end of the 19th century they were making a variety of things including bicycles. With the dawn of the 20th century the transportation industry was born, and the company began making motorized cycles and automobiles. This wing of the company broke off to become its own entity in 1926.

Unlike Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, the Peugeot brand never gained a serious foothold in the U.S. Nevertheless their cars won numerous awards in Europe, including European Car of the Year at least six times. 

Within the auto industry there's a mystique about Concept Cars where ideas get unveiled at major car shows. Sometimes this unique specimens become a reality in a future iteration of a brand. Sometimes they do not. The car we're talking about today never made it to the street, but as a Concept Car is definitely generated buzz. We're talking about the Peugeot 908 RC Sedan Concept with a V12 diesel engine. 

The story that caught my eye was Vlad Radu's "15 Years Ago, Peugeot's Crazy 908 RC Sedan Concept with V12 Diesel Power" at the Autoevolution website. Radu details how the car came to be, and what made it such a stunning piece of machinery.

"While it didn't make it into production, Peugeot's 908 RC concept was a beautifully designed mid-engined sedan powered by a monstrous twin-turbo V12," Radu writes. "Even more surprisingly, the powerplant was designed for Peugeot's Le Mans race car, drank diesel and produced an astonishing amount of torque."

The 908 RC was introduced at the 2006 Paris Motor Show. The intent was "to create a luxury vehicle with an imposing design and make it outrageously fun to drive." Hence, we have a futuristic design with an imposing Le Mans-spec engine.

The engine is what gets your adrenaline flowing. It was a V12 HDi DPFS (diesel Particulate filter system) that had been developed for the 2007 24 hours of Le Mans. The engine was rated at 691 horsepower and generated 885 lb-feet of torque, which Radu staes is higher than the peak torque of our current-dya Pagani Huayra Roadster BC or the ll-electric Porsche Taycan Turbo S. (These two each produce 774 lb-ft.)

Due to its 100-degree V angle construction the car had a low center of gravity. The two particulate filters made it environmentally friendly, as well.

Because of its exceptional torque, the engine required a more muscular gearbox. The six-speed gearbox selected was an electronically controlled sequential system placed directly under the engine. It was designed to tame the wildest beast.

The interior of the car was high-tech, yet elegant. Ergonomically it was a winner as well, and the touch-screen integrated all the cars functions. Passengers in the rear were treated to a multimedia entertainment center experience as well. 

The only real drawback was price. The concept was enticing, but how big of a market would their be? Though Peugeot chose not to move forward on the 908 RC, they learned a lot from the experience, and whet the appetite for a future Peugeot in many hearts and garages.

Here is the full story, with lots of photos, of Peugeot's Crazy 908 RC Concept Car.

New Twin-Turbo Diesel Toyota Land Cruiser Unveiled... The Good and the Bad, Nothing Ugly

Let's lead with the bad news. It's not available in the U.S.

Now that that's out of the way... On Wednesday this week Autoblog.com published a story about the new LC300 Toyota Land Cruiser that has been unveiled. The LC200-series Land Cruiser has just completed a successful 14 year run, but now Toyota is turning the page.

The new LC300 Land Cruiser features a twin-turbo diesel engine, inserted into a new platform that the article describes as "a clear evolution of past models, with blocky styling and off-road specifications designed to reliably cope with the harshest conditions and climates the world has to offer." 

Some of those climates include Australia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. What you need in the Outback and other remote terrains is reliability and durability, and that is what has made the Land Rover so successful. This latest version comes with two engine options, both V6. The 3.5-liter gas-powered V6 delivers 415 hp and 480 pound-feet of torque. The 3.3-liter diesel delivers 309  hp and 516 lb-ft of torque. With either selection you have a 10-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel drive.

Both Toyota and the article tout the chassis and suspension setup. The article include dramatic illustrations of these features. In addition this SUV is 440 pounds lighter than its previous iteration. The vehicle has a Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System that purportedly improves road handling performance as well.

When the article describes monitors that provide views of obstacles ahead and behind, it brings to mind my last visit to SEMA and the futuristic displays there in the Toyota booth. It was as if we were experiencing the year 2045 as envisioned by Spielberg in the Tom Cruise cyberclassic Minority Report. It does seem like when we experience some of the new tech being incorporated into todays cars and trucks, it feels like we are living in the future.

You can find more details on this breaking story here.