OM924

When DaimlerChrysler presented the OM 924 LA and its six-cylinder twin at the end of 1999, two of the four authors on the technical paper worked for Mercedes-Benz do Brasil — a fair indication of where these engines were expected to earn their living. The cylinder was opened out from the OM 904's 102 × 130 mm to 106 × 136, giving 4.8 liters from four cylinders, while the rest of the 900-series recipe carried over: three valves per cylinder, unit-pump injection, twin-scroll turbocharging with charge-air cooling, full electronic control. In European tune it made 218 hp and 810 N·m from 1,200 rpm.

In Germany it worked the middle of the range — Atego models from 822 to 1522, and the heavy Unimog U 5000, where a four-cylinder that pulled like a six mattered because every kilogram saved came back as payload. In Brazil it became something more permanent. Assembled at São Bernardo do Campo for Accelo and Atego trucks and for LO and OF bus chassis, it has been re-engineered locally through successive emissions steps to Proconve P8, the Brazilian equivalent of Euro VI — an engine designed in the 1990s still being certified for a market on the other side of the Atlantic three decades later.