Sixty Years of Setra Buses
09 February 2011
www.chianbuses.org: Setra Buses, Daimler's Ulm-based bus brand, will be celebrating this year the brand's 60th anniversary and the beginning of bus production in Ulm 100 years ago. The first Setra bus ever produced by Kässbohrer dates from 1951, bearing the chassis number -001. This vehicle was presented to bus companies for the first time at the Frankfurt International Motor Show in 1951.
The defining characteristic of this vehicle was that it did not use a truck frame as its base. Instead, a self-supporting frame was lined with sheet metal to form the vehicle's body. Other features of the first Setra included a six-cylinder Henschel rear engine rated at 74 kW (100 hp), underfloor luggage compartments and a fully synchromeshed five-speed ZF manual transmission.
The first Kässbohrer bus body was constructed in 1911 on a Swiss Saurer chassis, for the city of Ulm's first bus service running from Münsterplatz to the suburb of Wiblingen. The vehicle possessed a four-cylinder Saurer petrol engine with an output of around 29 kW (40 hp). The wooden body has 18 seats plus space for around ten standing passengers.
Kässbohrer kept on building bus bodies up to the late ‘fifties, specialising in compact buses on the chassis of the Opel Blitz, which was highly popular among bus companies at the time. With the introduction of the Setra S 6, compact buses were also produced in self-supporting design from the mid-1950s. The Opel Blitz of the ‘fifties was fitted with a six-cylinder petrol engine rated at 46 kW (62 hp). A Kässbohrer luggage trailer usually compensated for the lack of space in the luggage compartment.
Source : www.chinabuses.org
Editor : Busworld
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