Mercedes-Benz OF

The Mercedes-Benz OF series are body-ready bus platforms with a front engine, drum brakes and leaf-spring suspension, produced by Mercedes-Benz in Argentina and Brazil for the South American market. Depending on the model they serve urban or short and medium-distance intercity work, and they are basic high-floor platforms. The initials OF stand for omnibus with front-mounted engine. The OF chassis continued the line of the front-engine LO 1114 and OC 1214 buses, the latter sharing the full-front layout, and they were widely used in Buenos Aires through most of the 1980s and some years of the 1990s. Their use there ended in 1993 under new city rules banning front-engine buses, but they stayed in wide use in other Argentine markets.