Mercedes-Benz L 6600

The Mercedes-Benz L 6600 is the largest truck that Mercedes-Benz built after the Second World War. It was presented in 1950 and gave its name to a series that also took in the smaller L 5000 and its successor the L 5500, all built by the German maker between 1950 and 1963. The number in each designation gave the load capacity in kilograms. The L 6600 was an entirely new design with a six-cylinder inline pre-chamber diesel of 8.3 litres from the new OM 300 series, which gave 145 hp, and larger engines were added over the years. From 1954 the model was called the L 315, and in 1956 the more powerful L 326 arrived with a payload of 8 tonnes. The L 5000 carried 5 tonnes; in 1953 it was developed into the L 5500 with 500 kilograms more payload, and after the 1954 renaming it was the L 325, with the L 329 and L 334 later adding bigger engines. In 1959 the new Kurzhauber trucks replaced the series on the home market, but it stayed in production for export until 1963.