Benz with 16 cylinders?

[Dee8go]

Did Mercedes ever make a car with a sixteen cylinder engine? I know a lot of other high-end car makers from the thirties and forties made big-engined cars, but can't remember if Mercedes was one of them.

[dbn1066]

To the best of my knowledge, MB never even experimented with anything greater than 8 cylinders (not counting aircraft/marine engines , of which I know nothing). Marmon and Cadillac produced V-16's (tuning them is a nightmare- 2 coils, points etc., multiple carbs,). I don't know of any other production cars with 16's. Packard thought about it but never produced one. Although they did produce a straight 12, front wheel drive prototype, their V-12's (called "twin sixes" 1932 and earlier) were/are popular with those who could afford them. Parkard's 'liberty engines' built during WWI and WWII were 12 cylinders. The only MB models with enough room for a decent size V-16 would have been the grosser mercedes bodies (770k) and perhaps the 500-540k chassis. Europeans never had a "thing" for that many cylinders like the Americans bigger/more is better attitude. Even so, 16 cylinder engines didn't last long. They were too expensive and difficult to maintain; their popularity was sort of a fad for the wealthy for a short period of time.

[Dee8go]

Cadillac has their new "Sixteen" concept car, which is pretty cool to look at. I don't know whether it will ever be put into production, but it's sure purdy to look at.

Doesn't the Bugatti Veyron have a 16 cylinder engine?

[dbn1066]

Yea, it does. Both @ 1000HP, Bugatti @ $1.7 Million.

[Dee8go]

That Caddy looks like a car out of a super hero comic book or some type of action movie, doesn't it? It has the look of a caricature.

[dbn1066]

BTW, I have some vague info on a prototype that Mercedes built in the late 30's early 40's that had a V12. It was built on the 770 chassis. Production never came to fruition (war and all, factory destruction, etc.). Also, to clarify my earlier post, Packard built a straight (termed- monobloc) 12 cylinder car as a functional prototype driven buy an exec for a short time. The front wheel drive car they built was a V12 (still a one off prototype), which is still in existance, the monobloc 12 has not been found, yet.

[diametricalbenz]

Originally Posted by Dee8go

Cadillac has their new "Sixteen" concept car, which is pretty cool to look at. I don't know whether it will ever be put into production, but it's sure purdy to look at.

Doesn't the Bugatti Veyron have a 16 cylinder engine?

The 16 cylinder engine is merely 2 truck engines casted together into one big block.

[t walgamuth]

i think mercedes has made v12s.

of course they do now! i almost forgot.

tom w

[300SDog]

Yeah they did - 16 cyls and 230hp Grosser 770-F Cabriolet....... Now located at Canadian War Museum.

Hitlers Grosser 770 - F cabrio Limo

[Bob G]

In 1939 Mercedes Benz did experment with testing a V12 version of the W 148 Grosser pullman converible and sedan and the W 157 2 door coupe. Mercedes Benz antisapated this to replace the W770 and out shine Mercedes-Benz competitors Horch and Maybach who already had 12 cyliner engines. However with only marginal performance and difficulties with development and the out break of the second world war added a futher dimension to the problems
the result was the 12 cylinder cars never came to replace the Nurburg and Grosser Mercedes types.
Informationed gathered from Mercedes-Benz Super charged8-cylinder cars of the 1930 by Jan Melin.

Bob Geco

[kmaysob]

mercedes used a v12 in the last 10 years.

[Lycoming-8]

Seems like the prewar MB race cars used V-12's some of the time.

The 1938 Mercedes W154 race car had a 3 litre V12 engine (M163) with 2-speed supercharger and produced ~468 hp @ 7800 RPM. Its top speed was 330km/h (over 200 MPH). Think one of these is in the Technical Museum in Prague.

There were likely others, but no V-16's.

However in 1936-37, Auto Union's Type C Grand Prix Race car had a 45 deg 6-liter V-16 with a Bore X Stroke of 75 X 85 mm. The engine delivered 520 bhp at 5,000 rpm.

[t walgamuth]

if that truly was one of hitlers cars i could see it having an auto union motor in it, possibly.

or being a one off engine based on putting two straight eight engines on a common crankcase too.

tom w

[dbn1066]

Originally Posted by 240Dog

Yeah they did - 16 cyls and 230hp Grosser 770-F Cabriolet....... Now located at Canadian War Museum.

Hitlers Grosser 770 - F cabrio Limo

I think you are confusing the '16' with the number of spark plugs the 770 had. They are all 7.7 litre supercharged straight 8 engines with dual ignition, therefore 16 plugs, not cylinders. I've seen three different 770k's in person and those were all the same. If there was ever a V16 built I would have to see some documentation of it. I firmly believe there is no such thing,though. And, yes, they have made the 600 V12 for some years now but not during the 30's-40's, at least not production, that is.

[Dee8go]

What would be the advantage of having dual spark plugs?

It seems like some of the older cars had much greater displacement, but only 6 or 8 cylinders. Is it easier to increase HP by increasing individual cylinder displacement or by adding more cylinders to an engine's design? Or are neither of these changes neccessarily the determining factor?