History of the diesel car Production diesel car history started in 1933 with Citroën's Rosalie, which featured a diesel engine option (the 1,766 cc 11UD engine) in the Familiale (estate or station wagon) model. The Mercedes-Benz 260D and the Hanomag Rekord were introduced in 1936. Immediately after World War II, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, diesel-powered cars began to gain limited popularity, particularly for commercial applications, such as ambulances, taxis, and station wagons used for delivery work. Most were conventional in design. Mercedes-Benz offered a continuous stream of diesel-powered taxis, beginning in 1949 with their 170D powered by the OM-636 engine. Later, in 1959
Car The first production vehicles in Great Britain came from the Daimler Company, a company founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right to use the name of the engines. Lawson's company made its first car in 1897, and they bore the name "Daimler". In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In 1897, he built the first diesel engine. Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the