OM407

The joint program with MAN produced more than V-engines: inline fives and sixes were built to the same architecture. MAN preferred turbocharged straight sixes to V-engines and made full use of them, while Daimler-Benz had undertaken not to use the shared inline six in trucks in Europe at all. That left the buses, and it suited them: laid on its side and mounted lengthwise under the floor at the rear, the OM 407 stayed clear of the passenger compartment in a way no V-engine of the family could manage as neatly.

Series production of the O 307 standard intercity bus began at Mannheim in February 1973 with the new 210 PS six in the tail, and it went straight into the O 305 city bus as well, replacing the OM 360h. Both could be ordered with an engine enclosure that halved the noise reaching the street; output rose to 240 PS from 1977. The O 305 then carried it a long way from Mannheim — Singapore took 200 Alexander-bodied double-deckers on OM 407 power from 1984, the largest buses in the city without air conditioning, and ran them until 2001.