THE TRUCKS OF DAIMLER-BENZ
Part I: 1896-1949
By Stephan McKeown and Richard Simonds
Illustrations Daimler Archives
As heir to the legacies of Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, today’s Daimler-Benz has been building trucks and other kinds of commercial vehicles for more than 100 years – longer than any other manufacturer in the world. It is no exaggeration to maintain that the history of Daimler-Benz is the history of trucks. From Daimler’s first simple motorized wagon to the futuristic and powerful long-distance haulers of today, the company has reached its dominant position in the marketplace by combining pioneering technical innovation with the astute acquisition of competitors.
The first truck
In 1896, Gottlieb Daimler developed the first general-purpose flatbed truck – in essence a motorized cart. On October 1 of that year, the following vehicle order was entered into the sales records of the fledgling Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG): “Motorised goods vehicle, order no. 81, vehicle no. 42, four-hp two-cylinder engine, weight of the complete vehicle: 1,200 kilograms for carrying a load of 1,500 kilograms, invoiced to British Motor Syndicate Ltd. London.”
Engineering progress
Other commercial uses for this practical new vehicle type soon emerged. Playing to national inclinations, in 1898 Daimler introduced the first truck designed to transport beer. The long era of the workhorse was beginning to end.
In pursuit of broader markets for their new invention, Daimler and his engineering partner Wilhelm Maybach rapidly evolved their initial concept of the first truck, powered by a rear-mounted Daimler “Phoenix” 2-cylinder 4-horsepower engine transferring power to a pair of rear cart wheels through a leather belt, into a range of models with 6-, 8- and 10-horsepower front-mounted engines driving the rear wheels through a system of chain and gears. Payloads now reached 11,000 pounds at the top of the range. Moving the engine up front, putting it under a cover and adding a geared transmission and tubular-radiator cooling system created the archetype of the conventional Cab-Over-Engine (COE) truck of today. All this in 1898.
Benz and the first van
While Daimler developed his truck, Karl Benz was exploring parallel ground. In fact, something similar had happened 10 years earlier – as often seems to be the case with innovation – when Benz’s three-wheeled Patent Motor Car and Daimler’s first motorized carriage were devised almost simultaneously. By 1896, Benz had focused his attention on refining a light-delivery vehicle suitable for tight city alleys and narrow village lanes.
He added a box body to the frame of his production “Velo” car – thereby creating the first delivery van. This original van had a payload of 650 pounds, including driver, and was powered by a 1.05-liter 2.75-horsepower engine. Development was rapid: Just a year later, the new Benz “combination delivery vehicle” handled a payload of 650 pounds, plus driver and passenger, pulled by a 5-horsepower engine displacing 2.65 liters.
New models and markets
Daimler responded to this challenge from Benz, building his own lightweight business vehicle in 1897. Benz in turn launched a series of heavy-duty trucks in 1900 that could carry payloads as heavy as five tons with up to 14 horsepower. With competing product lines, the firms now battled for truck sales in Germany.
From 1896 until their merger in 1926 (see The Star November-December 2014, “Monumental Merger,” p. 54), the rival companies were also fierce competitors in the growing international commercial-vehicle market.
Soon after developing his lightweight vehicle, Daimler made his first truck sale in London. Deliveries of machines from both companies soon began in France, Austria and Russia. Then in 1900, Daimler brought the first trucks to New York. For a time, Daimler vehicles were built under license in the United States and England. Benz had his own production agreements in Russia and England.
Gottlieb Daimler died in the year 1900. By 1902, one of his partner companies in Berlin agreed to merge with Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and converted its factory to truck production. Automobiles continued to be made in Cannstatt and, from 1903, in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim.
With his Mannheim plant running at full capacity, Benz also needed to expand. From 1907-1911, the company gradually took over a rival commercial-vehicle manufacturer, the small, successful and technically quite advanced Süddeutsche Automobilfabrik, or SAF (South German Automotive Factory) located in the town of Gaggenau. The factory was renamed Benz-Werk Gaggenau on January 1, 1911; the Gaggenau site remains a Daimler-Benz commercial vehicle plant to this day.
Military interest
Earlier in 1898, the Prussian army issued its first set of requirements for the construction of military vehicles. Then in 1908, the armed forces put specifications and incentives in place to create what came to be called the “subsidy truck.” The development and manufacturing of trucks – including uniform standards for size, engineering and equipment – was subsidized by the army with the provision that truck buyers offer the vehicles back to the military in case of emergency. As a result, German forces were able to muster more than 5,000 trucks when World War I broke out in August of 1914.
During the ensuing conflict, the army concentrated vehicle production on trucks with payloads between two and five tons and output of 45 horsepower (Daimler) and 58 horsepower (Benz), augmented by monster gun tractors such as the Daimler K.D.I., with 100 horsepower and 4-wheel drive. Production of civilian vehicle types ceased entirely. As a consequence of this distorted building program, by the end of hostilities on November 11, 1918, the German armed forces had at least 25,000 trucks on hand – more than enough to meet immediate postwar civilian needs and seriously depress production of new commercial vehicles for years to come.
New technologies
By 1910 the truck had come of age. It was no longer simply a motorized cart. Both Daimler and Benz were at the forefront of improvement, developing single-cylinder into 4-cylinder engines that offered the customer an ever-increasing range of horsepower and torque. Soon, a variety of flatbed and box-body trucks with 6-ton payloads joined beer carriers and refrigerated bodies, dump trucks, furniture vans, tankers and bus bodies on strengthened and improved truck chassis. Robust cast steel wheels, first clad with solid rubber and then outfitted with pneumatic tires, replaced legacy steel-banded wooden cart wheels; dual rear wheels and tires soon appeared on heavy-duty trucks. Accurate kingpin steering replaced the antiquated pivot steering system inherited from horse-drawn wagons and a welcome roof was added above the driver’s head.
Although production stagnated after World War I, research and development continued. Civilian versions of military trucks were further refined, leading to Benz models designated 3K and 5K, with Daimler trucks labeled DC1, DC2, DC3 and DC4-5 to reflect payloads in kilograms. Benz developed a low-frame truck chassis that made cargo loading easier and foreshadowed future truck-chassis-based buses that were more convenient for passengers to board.
A major development from this period that affected automobiles as well as trucks was the cardan drive – today known as the driveshaft and differential. This technical breakthrough replaced the dirty and dangerous chain drive, offering greater reliability, less maintenance, and higher speeds with heavier payloads.
Rudolf Diesel’s patents expired in 1907. At the time of Diesel’s death, engines bearing his name were engineered largely for marine and stationary applications. Notable refinement of diesel propulsion by both Benz and Daimler led to its introduction in Benz tractors beginning in 1922, and by 1923, in trucks.
At Benz, engineer and member of the board of management Prosper L’Orange introduced the pre-chamber diesel system. At the same time, Daimler engineers were experimenting with compressed-air fuel injection, and the well-regarded MaschinenfabrikAugsburg-Nürnberg, or MAN (Machine Works of Augsburg and Nürnberg) was extensively testing a direct injection system. The Benz pre-chamber design was eventually proven to be superior. This basic design remained in use until superseded by high-pressure electronic fuel injection in the late 1990s.
Merger and restructuring
The German economy was in chaos after the defeat of World War I; virtually every company struggled to survive under crippling terms imposed by the victorious Allied Powers. In a desperate attempt to stave off imminent financial collapse, Daimler and Benz began merger talks in 1924; a combined company, Daimler-Benz AG, emerged in 1926.
The newly formed company’s first order of business was to quickly rationalize existing product lines – including trucks. At the 1927 International Motor Show for Trucks and Special Vehicles in Cologne, a revamped range of three models was on display: Mercedes-Benz L 1-L 5, N 1 and N 2. The L 5 with its OM5 diesel – the first 6-cylinder diesel engine for vehicles – was a big hit at Cologne. The N 1 and N 2 were low-chassis platforms designed for delivery vans that also generated interest from bus-body fabricators. This chassis would further improve the comfort of buses and was another step away from coaches built on utilitarian truck chassis.
Engineering advancements
Although Mercedes-Benz trucks were available with both gasoline and diesel engines, diesel power was not very popular with truck buyers. This began to change when Bosch commenced reliable large-scale production of the technically crucial diesel injection pumps previously made in-house by Daimler-Benz. In 1932, Daimler-Benz introduced the Lo 2000 – a compact truck with a 4-cylinder OM59 diesel engine producing 55 horsepower. With lower maintenance costs and better fuel economy than a gasoline engine, the diesel now gradually became the truck engine of choice. With the word “DIESEL” proudly appearing in large letters beneath the three-pointed star on truck radiators, Daimler-Benz firmly assumed leadership in diesel engine design and production.
With the nation’s economy improving during the 1930s, Germany’s fleet of commercial vehicles expanded by 150 percent. Construction of the Autobahn commenced, and long-distance transport now required more powerful and reliable trucks. Daimler-Benz responded to this challenge with a line of massive heavy-duty commercial vehicles, the L 6500, L 8500 and L 10000, with three axles and a very long hood that housed up to 12.5-liter diesel engines and 150 horsepower.
In a continuing evolution, the truck cab become more rounded and the simple flat windshield was augmented by angled, curved-edge glass by 1938. A new series of light-duty trucks was built starting in 1939, ranging from the L 1100 to L 2000 and using the 260D passenger-car engine. These advanced vehicles were forerunners of today’s short-nose configuration vans.
Military takeover
In 1938, the National Socialist regime took over direction of the motor industry. The German Reich’s “Plenipotentiary for the Motor Vehicle Business” – a Colonel von Schnell – restricted truck production to just four vehicle types and dictated specific model and production quotas to each manufacturer. All vehicle production was strictly for the military. In 1942, Minister of Armaments Albert Speer compelled Daimler-Benz to begin making the ubiquitous Opel Blitz three-ton truck, rebadged as the Mercedes-Benz L 701. Compulsory quota assembly of assigned military vehicle models continued until Germany’s surrender in May 1945. Allied occupation forces then tightly regulated all vehicle manufacturing.
Aftermath of war
The Daimler-Benz factories – with the exception of the Mannheim plant – were all but completely destroyed in World War II. With the heroic efforts of returning employees, production sites were cleared of rubble; in 1946, simple manufacturing began for utility vehicles. A few basic passenger vehicles were produced in 1947. Then, with the permission of American armed forces in Stuttgart and supplied with a design created at the Mannheim facility, development of a truck to replace the Opel Blitz was undertaken. In 1949, the first postwar Daimler-Benz truck, the L 3250, began rolling off the production line, ready to help build a brighter future for Germany and Daimler-Benz.
Part II of “The Trucks of Daimler-Benz” will appear in an upcoming issue. Subsequent articles will investigate the history of the motorbus – invented by Karl Benz in 1895 – and survey other specialized vehicle types.
Captions
59 The Modern Age: The Heyl Brothers Company’s new fleet of 5-ton, 35-horsepower Daimler trucks draws a curious crowd of townspeople in the center of Charlottenburg, near Berlin, 1909.
60 Gottlieb Daimler’s – and the world’s – first truck, sold to the British Motor Syndicate Ltd., London, 1896.
Daimler 28-horsepower beer delivery truck, Berlin circa 1910.
Benz-Gaggenau utility truck built to comply with German army subsidy-truck requirements, 1912.
Daimler K.D.I. German army artillery tow tractor with 100 horsepower, 4-wheel drive and winch, 1917. BELOW: Daimler 5-ton 55-horsepower truck equipped with twin trailers manned by auxiliary drivers, 1923.
Daimler-Benz L 5 5-ton platform truck, 70-horsepower diesel engine, 1927.
L1 1.5-ton panel van (M14 engine), 1926-1928.
Two-ton Lo 2000 truck, 1932; the first standard light-duty truck with diesel engine.
Type Lo 2000 truck chassis, with 55-horsepower diesel engine, 1932-1937.
LEFT: Spectacular heavy-duty LK 10000 (N 56) three-axle low-frame twin-box dump truck with diesel engine (OM 57), produced 1938-1939.
Daimler-Benz cross-country G3 truck built for German railroad, 1934.
Type L 10000 three-axle low-frame platform cargo carrier, 1937.
Daimler-Benz Type L 701, 3-ton platform truck 68-horsepower (license-built Opel Blitz) 1942-1949.
Starting over: Postwar L 3250 platform truck, 1949.