Spectacular photos of a strength test

The new design had numerous advantages. The body was lighter than the previously used wooden skeleton with sheet steel paneling, and the new architecture also increased stability. At the time, spectacular photos dramatically proved the new body’s high load-bearing capacity, showing a large number of workers from the Sindelfingen bodywork plant assembled on the roof of the new bus, for example.

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

Unlike wood, steel does not splinter, accounting for the higher level of passive safety of the all-steel body – “… because injuries caused by wooden splinters are ruled out in the event of an accident, …” as a contemporary brochure put it.

The steel skeleton of the Mercedes-Benz Lo 2000, 1932.