OM442

The V8 arrived ahead of the rest of its generation: the turbocharged OM 442 A at 350 PS and the intercooled OM 442 LA at 435 PS were both on sale in 1985, three years before the SK range they would come to define. Across that range they did nearly everything, from two-axle 17-tonners to four-axle mixers and tippers, and the top rating kept climbing — 492 PS in 1988, 503 in 1991, and 530 PS with 2,300 N·m once the Euro II version appeared in 1994 with a sleeve-controlled pump.

From 1988 Daimler-Benz sold these engines outside its own vehicles through MTU, where the V8 became the 8V183 at 600 PS and found work under the Mowag Trojan and the first batch of ASCOD Pizarro infantry fighting vehicles. Civilian versions went into combine harvesters and heavy plant. When the Actros replaced the SK in 1996 the eight-cylinder job passed to the OM 502 LA — a slightly larger engine, but one built on entirely different injection principles.