Interesting pic regarding the L-Series/Mercedes connections

[Guest Tempe_Z]

http://www.killeraxles.com/html/mog_motor.html

 

Take a good look at the whole valvetrain in that picture. Look a bit familiar? Especially look at the rocker arms. Just thought the resemblance was more than a bit uncanny. That's a pretty old Mercedes design there too on the Unimog motors. Granted they seem to be reversed on each cylinder for the intake and exhaust valves instead of all in a row like they are on the L series but there's still a strong resemblence.

[CruxGNZ]

Correct me if I'm wrong guys, but wasn't the L series engine designed by Mercedes?

 

!M!

[Guest Tempe_Z]

Sort of. As I understand it the Prince Motor Company bought some design rights from Mercedes and then Nissan bought the Prince motor company. This is mostly just to illustrate that fact. Most of the info I've ever seen about it just says that's what happens but nothing I've ever seen really shows the similarity as a picture or diagram, that's why I posted this. Mostly just a point of interest/trivia I thought some of us might find entertaining.

[HS30-H]

The Prince Motor Company licensed some design details and principles that Mercedes had patented.

This was for the Prince "G" series engines of the mid Sixties. When PMC were absorbed by NMC it gave Nissan a big boost in certain areas, and the licenses and agreements were part of that.

The Nissan L-series engine was not "designed by Mercedes" - it just used some of the patent / licensed solutions that Nissan inherited from Prince.

As you can see from the diagrams, the layout of the Mercedes engine was quite different to the Prince "G" series and the Nissan "L" series engines. It was just some of the parts that were similar.

 

Respect to Tempe-Z for posting the link to the Mercedes drawings and pointing out the similarity, but I would have to disagree with his interpretation of how similar the designs are. In fact, automotive design ( just like most areas of engineering ) is full of this kind of patent licensing. I'd say that most of us don't realise the half of what is licensed and what is "original". It grates a little when companies like Prince and Nissan have been accused of being 'copyists' or at least plagiarising the designs of other companies, but in most cases they were doing what all the other automotive manufacturers were doing in the same period - licensing.

 

Alan T.