The invention relates to an internal combustion engine for vehicles on which a device is mounted and has a semiconductor-based read-only memory, which contains data which are destined to be used for a given purpose of the device, and has an interface enabling an access to the read-only memory. In addition to the data which are destined to be used for the given purpose of the device there are engine-specific data stored in non-volatile manner in the device, the engine-specific data being neither necessary nor destined for the given purpose of the device, and that the engine-specific data, too, can be read out electronically via the said interface.