First car to run diesel?

[Licespray]

Hey guys,

 

Curious when diesel started being used in trucks and passenger cars. What was the first car to use a diesel engine, or first commonly produced vehicle (car and truck?)

 

Cheers,

Troy.

[Restorer32]

Friend had a 1937 Diesel Mercedes.

[viv w]

Auburn built a few diesel powered cars in 1935/6

[C Carl]

In the 1930s, the huge German rigid airships, the Zeppelins, were powered by Maybach diesels. Now that sentence contains 3 words which to my eyes look like German words/names. That could be a clue 🤔. Diesel engines probably were developed by some German gentleman named Diesel 😏. If I didn't have to scoot right now, I would wring out the internet and give you a definitive answer. Maybe someone will have this figured out by the time I get back to the forum.  😉   Not C Karl,    -    C Carl 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2019 by C Carl
Add Emojis for clarification (see edit history)

[Trulyvintage]

7 hours ago, Licespray said:

Hey guys,

 

Curious when diesel started being used in trucks and passenger cars. What was the first car to use a diesel engine, or first commonly produced vehicle (car and truck?)

 

Cheers,

Troy.

 

 

 

Jim

[John_S_in_Penna]

I had heard that Rudoph Diesel invented the diesel engine.

Bill Rotary's invention never took off, but the engine

developed by Frederick Gasoline certainly has done well--- 

[edinmass]

There was a Diesel racer built and run in Indy in 1922 if I am not mistaken. They ran a catylatic converter to knock down the smell and smoke.

Edited October 19, 2019 by edinmass (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

I know a collector who has a very early diesel bicycle built in Germany. Interesting how it obtains the high compression necessary.

.

[29 franklin]

Rudolph Diesel came up with the idea and built the first diesel engine but Clessie Cummins is the man who perfected it . Most early diesels in the US were from Cummins in some way shape or form .  . Still building them today !

[joe_padavano]

Cummins ran five different diesel powered cars at Indy, the last in 1952. They were recently all at the Speedway.  Here's a good article on the race cars.

 

[HarryLime]

"INTERNAL FIRE'' by Lyle Cummins is the best engine history book. Worth a read. It should be in your library. 

[Rusty_OToole]

The Cummins engine company put one of their 4 cylinder diesel engines into a 1925 Packard sedan in June 1929 and demonstrated it extensively, among other things driving to New York, a distance of 600 miles on $1.38 worth of fuel. Next they put a diesel engine into a Packard roadster and set speed records at Daytona Beach, and followed up with entries in the Indianapolis 500.

 

These cars used the new Model U engine designed for marine use. But sales of marine engines were disappointing, so they looked to possible new markets in trucks and cars. These auto experiments were meant to prove the diesel was a practical alternative to the gas engine for road use, especially in transport trucks.

 

In June 1935 they showed an Auburn powered by a new six cylinder Model H diesel engine. A total of 4 diesel Auburns were built and shown to the public but they were never produced for sale. They had a new light weight engine with aluminum block and head. It developed 85HP from 377 cubic inches and weighed 870 pounds,  80 pounds more than the Lycoming  280 cu in 120HP it replaced. It also got 40 miles to the gallon, more than double the mileage of the gas engine version.

 

First mass produced diesel car was the Mercedes 260 D which was made from 1936 to 1940.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history)

[Craig Gillingham]

There were a couple of Mercedes-Benz diesel trucks in Australia in 1928; these were factory made vehicles, not specials or one-offs, so M-B have been making them from at least since then. Here is the cover of an Australian brochure for one of them.

 

https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1511998

[8E45E]

18 hours ago, 29 franklin said:

Rudolph Diesel came up with the idea and built the first diesel engine but Clessie Cummins is the man who perfected it . Most early diesels in the US were from Cummins in some way shape or form .  . Still building them today !

Even race cars!!

[Restorer32]

Friend of mine bought a 1937 Mercedes Diesel to drive back and forth to college. He kept it and his daughter also drove it back and forth to college.  A few years later, realizing the car wasn't being used , he sold it very cheaply. The next year Mercedes had a contest to find the oldest operating Mercedes Diesel in the US. His ex car, which he had sold only the year before, won the contest. The prize? A new Mercedes.

 

[bdc]

If memory services me right Rudolph Diesel dissapeared under suspicious circumstances.

[Buffalowed Bill]

I remembered reading about where and by whom the diesel was actually invented. A quick Google search uncovered this narrative.

Rudolf Diesel claimed to have invented the compression ignition engine bearing his name in the year 1897, though history claims that an Englishman, Herbert Akroyd Stuart, built the first prototype Diesel Engine in collaboration with Richard Hornsby & Co., in 1891. Stuart's seminal patent, #7146 of May 1890, describes how after the combustion chamber or vaporizer has been externally heated by a blowlamp, the induction stroke instead of drawing into the cylinder a mixture of hydrocarbon vapor and air, simply draws in pure air. Stuart granted a licence to Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham to build his engines under the title 'Hornsby Akroyd Patent Oil' during the year 1891, when two of his machines were exhibited at the Royal Agricultural Show in Doncaster in June 1891. The first compression-ignition locomotive was made by Hornsby to Akroyd Stuart's design in 1896 and in 1897 diesel driven tractors were also built.

[padgett]

I recall several early engines requiring a heated intake (as opposed to glow plugs used for starting only in the early daze (think described in one of Floyd Clymer's books). Personally would not consider any engine requiring additional heat to run to be a true CI device (or anything requiring an intake throttle).

 

How does Stuart's device introduce the combustable mixture into the cyl if the intake stroke is pure air ?