MTU is a subsidiary of Tognum AG in Germany. They are a large conglomerate that builds heavy engines. Daimler did indeed pull the rug on Paccar and Navistar by removing their ability to support any Detroit engine. That leaves only Freightliner having access to Detroit Parts. Freightliner does not support the 2 cycle engines, but there are a lot of 2 cycles out there and parts are available. As far as military goes, the 2 cycles are still all mechanical which is a big plus in the remote areas of the world where we use them, they start better than other Diesels, and they are very tolerant to operator abuse. GM won big contracts to supply the military for almost 75 years which means there are a lot of them out there and I think they are probably the best suited for the job.
MTU division of Togum AG landed themselves a good deal by supporting the military. In fact if you look at their stock, it is doing better on the German DAX than our domestic engine manufacturers.
As far as feasibility to to be used in todays class 8 transportation industry, Detroit mechanical engines as well as Cummins and Cat mechanical engines have lost their place in the sun.
However, the original question was about the GMC Astro and the Chev Titan. Both of these went into production around 1968 so I feel they belong in this forum. They are trucks, they are GM and they were built before 1972. However the fact remains, very few GM built class 8 trucks built from this platform survived. Support is much more difficult to find in the trucking industry since Daimler got out of the picture.
I'm not sure how relevant military engines, industrial engines and trucks of the 80's are in a forum aimed at pre 1973 trucks.
