MERCEDES-BENZ 180D/190D (1953-1962)
Technically speaking, Mercedes’ 180D and 190D were the firm’s fourth and fifth diesel passenger cars; 1935’s 260D (W138) was Sindelfingen’s first compression ignition car, fitted with a 2.5-litre four-cylinder OM138 engine after attempts to fit a truck engine into a car chassis proved unsuccessful.
Earlier efforts from other manufacturers, like Citroën’s Rosalie 11UD two years earlier, were, like the Mercedes, relatively niche efforts, and curtailed by World War Two.
Despite their relatively low performance and lack of refinement, the diesel engine created a new market for manufacturers; cars so equipped could be advertised with considerably lower running costs and were thus worthy of further development.
Much of Daimler-Benz’s wartime research went to the OM138’s peacetime successor, the OM636: it was this 1.8-litre engine, fitted to the W120…