OM404

Adding a fifth pair of cylinders to the modular V-engine produced a twelve of 20.9 liters, and for it Daimler-Benz broke its own rule. Where the six, eight and ten all used a 130 mm stroke, the V12 went to 142 mm — the figure the entire range would adopt when the OM 42x generation arrived in 1980. It was also the only member of the family listed with turbocharging as a standard option rather than a special order, and at 430 PS it stood far above anything the ordinary truck ranges had a use for.

So it went where they could not. Heavy-haulage tractors took it, and airfield crash tenders — machines that sit idle for most of a year and are then asked for everything for a couple of minutes, which is why boosted OM 404s are reported to have reached well over 1,200 PS on short-term ratings. Hospitals bought it as standby generating plant. And a late-1970s Neoplan double-deck articulated coach, later rebuilt into what was billed as the world's largest motorhome, was still running one at 440 PS in 1997, grandfathered past every emissions law passed in between.