Novelty: Panoramic glazing curving into the roof

The O 302 was available with plane side windows or with curved glazing. The latter extended into the roof, thereby converting the bus into a classic panoramic vehicle. On this version, the rear door was adapted to the side contour by means of an additional window at the top. The panoramic glazing had first and foremost been designed for touring coaches but was also optionally available for the regular-service buses with their destination indicators. “The O 302 touring coach is the first from large-scale production to feature curved windows extending into the roof rather than the conventional roof edge glazing,” customers were informed.

Mercedes-Benz O 302, 1965.

The driver’s workplace in the Mercedes-Benz O 302 was visually separated from the passenger compartment in that the lower edges of windshield and front door windows formed a single line that was clearly below the passenger compartment’s cowling. In the versions with high, curved side windows, the roof was slightly raised in the area of the passenger compartment sides. A vertically divided windshield was still state of the art in the mid-sixties, but the partition had been reduced to a narrow strip on the O 302.

Mercedes-Benz O 302 - Driver's seat