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istory Repeating: Five Decades Ago, Diesel-Powered Cars Were An Anomaly. That's No Longer The Case. The Rattle Continues.
"Mister, they don't make diesel engines small enough for passenger cars. If I put diesel fuel in your tank, this car will never run again," grumbled the attendant of a little Midwestern station. So we had to pop the hood of Motor Trend's test car to prove there really is such a thing as a diesel car."
So began a story entitled "Is the Diesel the Coming Economy Car?" in our June 1959 issue. In just four pages, it talked about the pros, cons, and costs surrounding diesel power for passenger vehicles and chronicled a 5122-mile trip our editors made across America in a new Mercedes-Benz 190D "Ponton" sedan, the first diesel-powered automobile sold in (relatively) mainstream numbers in the United States.
Fast-forward 50 years to a conversation over drinks at this year's Geneva motor show among executive editor Matt Stone, Geoff Day of Mercedes-Benz USA, and Christoph Horn and Koert Groeneveld of Daimler AG. With Mercedes-Benz preparing to launch its first 50-state-legal, BlueTEC clean-diesel-powered sport/utilities (ML, GL, and R-Classes), the Mercedes guys thought it would be fun to recreate that memorable and, it turns out, prophetic, cross-country trek of 50 years back. We agreed on one condition: that we also take along a 190D to better connect the dots between the decades.
Road trip...
Mercedes-Benz Diesel Road Trip - Driving the 2009 Mercedes-Benz ML320 and a vintage 1960 190D across America - Motor Trend
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