regular-service operation was presented. However, months later Mercedes-Benz announced the end of integral bus production in Brazil. A statement was made in which the company announced it would henceforth focus on the production and development of bus chassis and platforms, and so it occurred. Bus production was relocated in the São Bernardo do Campo plant in 2000, when the Campinas industrial complex was dedicated for activities related to training and overseeing the dealership network in Brazil, parts and accessories distribution and technical assistance. In 2006 DaimlerChrysler do Brasil unveiled two new articulated modular bus chassis – the O 500 MA (raised floor) and the O 500 UA (low-floor). Both are equipped with a six-cylinder-rear-mounted engine delivering 360 hp as standard. Units of the O 500 articulated bus range were purchased to operate in the BRT systems of Curitiba, São Paulo, Santiago de Chile (Transantiago) and Bogotá (Transmilenio). Nowadays (2014), under the umbrella of Mercedes-Benz do Brasil Ltda., the bus chassis produced by Mercedes-Benz in Brazil supply the Brazilian market and are exported for countries in the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Amongst the buses produced by Mercedes-Benz in Brazil are the O 500 modular bus chassis series, which includes chassis made for urban and rural applications (available in raised- and low-floor versions) as well as coach chassis, the OH rear-engine bus chassis series, the OF front-engine bus chassis series and the LO mini- and micro-bus chassis series. Mercedes-Benz Argentina In 1951 the then Daimler-Benz AG set up in Argentina its first factories outside Germany: one in the town of San Martín, near Buenos Aires, and another in González Catán on industrial suburbs. The San Martin plant was closed at the end of the 1950s. Mercedes-Benz released updated local colectivo based on modified L 3500 truck chassis – LO3500, OP3500, LO311, LO312– with a separately manufactured body fitted at a later stage by different coach builders. Also, it is important to note that the LO312 was the first Mercedes-Benz bus front chassis manufactured in Argentina In 1963 Mercedes built the 10,000th colectivo (model LO312), and continued with other models, such as LO1112, (120 HP), LA1112 4x4 (traction in all wheels) and the LO1114. Due to the family relationship with the truck, the Mercedes-Benz colectivos had a diesel engine with power transmitted to the rear axle by a five-speed constant-mesh gearbox. In 1967, manufacture of the middle-distance buses of self-supporting