The new generation of engines didn’t appear overnight. The Daimler engineers spent many years conceiving and designing the new series of advanced diesel engines and preparing it for series production. And, as always, the specialists from Advanced Engineering and Series Development worked hand in hand. The concept phase for the OM651 began at Advanced Engineering back in 2003. According to Franz-Paul Gulde and Johannes Leweux, the initial goal was solely to develop the technology for the planned engine’s components or to modify tried and tested systems. Gulde is Head of the Car Diesel Engine department at Advanced Engineering; his colleague Leweux is responsible for OM651 Product Development. The team of engineers didn’t have to start from scratch for all the components; in some cases they were able to use technologies that had proven their worth in other projects. After all, Daimler currently makes a  very broad range of diesel engines, from the world’s smallest diesel — the three-cylinder engine of the smart — to the Actros truck’s V8 engine, with its 16 liters of displacement and 2,800 newton-meters of torque.