It’s Official: Detroit Engines are Detroits

Setting the seal on common usage, Daimler Trucks has rebranded Detroit Diesel to just plain Detroit. This opens up the division and the brand to encompass the multi-faceted line of Daimler Powertrain products that will be offered under the new name.

Detroit Diesel was originally a GM brand, grown out of the GM Diesel division that launched the two-cycle Series 53 and Series 71 in the late ‘50s. The Detroit Diesel Engine Division became its own brand in 1965 and was acquired by Daimler in 2000 to become the wholly owned and captive engine manufacturer for Freightliner and Western Star – and, at the time, Sterling.

Now, Detroit will be the manufacturer of engines in the two Daimler Trucks North America brands and will also encompass transmissions and axles. The full lineup of Detroit products is not due to be announced till the Mid America Trucking Show in the Spring of 2012. For the moment, its main products will be the DD13, DD15 and DD16 engines that will carry the new single word brand with the long-established “yin and yang” logo.

These Detroit engines feature Daimler’s BluTec selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology and are proving to be highly effective in the post-EPA2010 trucking environment. The engines thus carry on the economy and performance mantle of the Series 60, the four-cycle engine that saved Detroit Diesel when it was introduced in 1987. This was one of the first electronically controlled diesels, though the DDEC controller first saw the light of day on the earlier two-cycle Silver 92 V6 engines several years earlier.

The Series 60 was a very robust six-cylinder in-line engine that became the American trucking industry’s most popular power during its long lifetime.

The current DD series of engines are North America’s versions of the Heavy Duty Engine Platform (HDEP) created by Daimler in a $2-billion program to address in one stroke the upcoming emissions of EPA2010, Euro 6 and the Japanese emissions requirements. It was launched with the DD15 in 2007 and featured many ground-breaking innovations including the first turbo-compounding available on a truck engine in North America.

Different versions of the HDEP platform – including a smaller 10.6 liter – are offered, or will be, in Mercedes-Benz and Fuso trucks in their individual markets. The Mercedes-Benz Actros has recently been completely overhauled and announced in July as the 2012 New Actros. It has the HDEP in-line engine – a major departure as the three previous generations of Actros all featured either V6 or V8 four-cycle diesel engines.

The first New Actros was driven off the Worth, Germany, production line by Daimler CEO and past Freightliner president Dieter Zetsche on October 3, marking the debut of the HDEP platform in markets other than North America.

The European engine is designated the OM 471 and is based on the same engine as the DD13, displacing 12.8 liters. It has a high specific output, with the top power of the four ratings available being 510 hp and 1850 pound-feet of torque. In the New Actros, it pulls a tall 2.611 standard axle ratio and has an available additional 150 pound-feet available when in top gear in the automated Mercedes-Benz transmission.