OM502

It shared a parts kit with the OM 501 V6 — the same 130 × 150 mm cylinder, the same pistons and connecting rods, the same unit-pump injection — and differed mechanically in little beyond the number of turbochargers, one per bank rather than one for the whole engine. Nearly every other difference between ratings lived in the control-unit software. At the Actros launch in 1996 it came at 476, 530 and 571 PS; the flagship 1857 took the last of those with 2,700 N·m, and the new V8 was compact enough to allow a flat cab floor.

By the Euro V years it reached 653 PS and 3,000 N·m. It also seeded two other families. MTU and Detroit Diesel developed the platform into the Series 2000 for industrial and marine work — the V6 left out, twelve- and sixteen-cylinder versions added — while the militarised Series 199 turned the V8 into the 8V199, at 530 kW in the Boxer and ASCOD and 600 kW in Ajax and the M10 Booker. Mercedes-Benz itself went no further with V-engines: from 2013 its heaviest trucks used the inline OM 473.