Pics of 1938 260D
 

Some nice pics of the orginal diesel, the 260D.

Another Pic

And another pic.

And Still Another.

And One More

Did Daimler-Benz make the first diesel powered car? I have wondered about this and if Herr Diesel himself worked for Daimler-Benz.

Any history, etc would be interesting to know!

Diesel History
 

http://www.mbusa.com/brand/container.jsp?/heritage/history.jsp&menu=2_2

Theres some interesting Mercedes history at this MBUSA site .. hopefully the link works.

Where can I get one of those?

All its missing is the swastika flags on the front fenders. RT

Where did the pix come from? A beauty with
 

a limousine-style division glass. It was my impression that these prewar cars were mostly involved in taxi and other "professional" livery,
and rarely carried other than fairly utilitarian sedan coachwork.

Where Did The Pics Come From?
 

I found them on a european web site some time ago and saved the pics on my puter .. don't remember the URL.

That is a real classy old Diesel, would agree that one of those in the garage would be nice. I had been led to believe that the 170D was the original MB Diesel. This looks to be a somewhat larger vehicle, which would be expected by the 260D model designation. As the info on the MBUSA web page notes the MB Diesel is the first Diesel in a production car with significant volume of units. However I beleive that Clessie Cummins put a Cummins Diesel engine in a '35 or '36 Auburn around 1936 or so and ran it across the country NY to Calif for only a few dollars in fuel. Think they als outfitted an Indy racer with a Cummins engine at one time. Supposedly the Cummins / Auburn "Diesel" is still stashed somewhere in the factory in Indiana.

This 260 jasper seems to be first
 

MB production diesel, according to "Mercedes-Benz Buyer's Guide" by Frank Barrett.

The little postwar diesel Mercedes saved the company...NO decent and consistent supply of gasoline was available in much of Europe until the mid-'50s...so the 170D and others had a great market niche to exploit, almost by chance. Saw a beautiful '53 170DS owned by a Dupont living in Paris in the '50s...seemed that the fleet of Cadillacs and other big US cars they had shipped to Europe had no decent gas to run on, so they bought the MB diesel.

Have seen pix of the Cummins Auburn...Packard also had, of all things, a diesel AIRCRAFT engine in the '30s.

I'd love to see a pic of that engine.

Pic of 260D Engine
 

Found a pic of the 260D engine.