It's 16 litres, 300kW, and it's a Volvo
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• Volvo has developed a new, 16 litre truck engine that will take it above 298kW (400hp) for the first time.
The engine, an in-line sixcylinder unit in the Volvo tradition, is not yet at the stage where anyone at the group headquarters in Gothenburg is prepared to release any information, or even admit to its existence, but CM understands that prototypes are currently undergoing field trials in northern Sweden.
If Volvo follows its standard engine designation system the new unit will be called the TD 160, and TD160F in chargecooled form.
Volvo's largest capacity, and most powerful, current truck engine is the 12-litre TD121F, which is rated at a maximum of 287kW (385hp) to the ISO standard.
Many of Volvo's main rivals in Europe, including Scania, Iveco and Daimler-Benz now have engines which are considerably more powerful than that, and in the USA, which is becoming an increasingly important market for the Swedish truck corporation, power outputs in excess of 300kW are commonplace.
At the moment, Volvo's White subsidiary mainly uses Cummins power units, but the new engine would be an obvious alternative.
In the UK a more powerful Volvo engine would have particular appeal in the 150-tonnes plus heavy haulage sector.