The Mercedes-Benz M100 Engine was introduced in the 1963 Mercedes-Benz 600

Mercedes-Benz 600

The Mercedes-Benz 600 is a large luxury automobile offered in several variants worldwide. Introduced in September 1963, it had very few competitors, these being Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Cadillac Fleetwood 75, the stretched Lehmann-Peterson Lincoln, and the Crown Imperial Ghia...

 with 6.3 litres, and later also used in the Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3

Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3

The Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 started out as a private venture in 1966 by company engineer Erich Waxenberger.- Concept :Waxenberger's principle was simple: take the powerful 6.3 litre V8 Mercedes-Benz M100 engine from the luxurious Mercedes-Benz 600 limousine, and fit it into the regular...

 from 1968 onwards, and even larger, in the 1970s Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9

Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9

The Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 is a high-performance version of the S-Class luxury saloon. It was built on its own assembly line by Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart, Germany and based on the long-wheelbase version of the W116 chassis introduced in 1972...

.

It featured a cast iron V8 with a single overhead camshaft operating sodium

Sodium

Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals; its only stable isotope is 23Na. It is an abundant element that exists in numerous minerals, most commonly as sodium chloride...

-filled valve

Poppet valve

A poppet valve is a valve consisting of a hole, usually round or oval, and a tapered plug, usually a disk shape on the end of a shaft also called a valve stem. The shaft guides the plug portion by sliding through a valve guide...

s (as are found in piston-driven aircraft) against hardened valve seats on each aluminium alloy cylinder head.

Each hand-built unit was bench-tested for 265 minutes, 40 of which were under full load.