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English   The long road to the rear-mounted engine
17.11.2011 von admin


The new design combined numerous advantages. A body like this weighs less than the wooden frameworks with metal paneling used up until then; the stability also profited from the new architecture. Spectacular photos drastically underscored the high load-bearing capacity of the new body, as documented by one showing a considerable number of employees of the Sindelfingen body plant gathered on the roof of the new bus. As steel, unlike wood, does not splinter, the all-steel construction went hand in hand with higher passive safety: “Since in collisions injuries caused by splinters of wood are impossible,” one contemporary brochure summed it up.


Roof loading of the Mercedes-Benz Lo 2000’s steel body, 1932.

Additional badges on the buses promoted the new technology. They read: “Steel Body Daimler-Benz AG Sindelfingen.” Though the chassis of the buses came from the Gaggenau plant at the time, Sindelfingen was responsible for the body – since 1928 Sindelfingen served as bus plant of Daimler-Benz. The large buses took the lead in the transition to all-steel bodies; the smaller models followed during the next few years.

In 1935 Daimler-Benz summed up the results: “For the smallest and the biggest buses and for all-weather vehicles, all-steel bodies are the choice because this design has shown itself to be superior to wood structures in every respect.” In practically no time at all the factory had changed over its entire program.

Semitrailer-type buses come in fashion in the 1930s

The LZ 4000, LZ 6000 and LZ 8000 tractor trucks built starting in 1933 were very popular not only for transporting freight, but also passengers. The advantages of the tractor/semitrailer combination in freight transportation resulted (and still do today) from the decoupling of tractor and load-carrying unit. On the one hand, this makes a very favorable ratio of combination curb weight to payload possible. On the other hand, the distributing of the load among three axles permitted advancing into payload regions which had appeared impossible until then in view of the low weight of the means of transportation itself.


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