1519, OF 1621 and OF 1721 and OF 1724. Mercedes-Benz Türk Daimler AG is currently manufacturing buses and coaches under the Mercedes-Benz brand in Turkey. Mercedes-Benz Türk was established in Istanbul in 1967 as Otomarsan, and it started the production of the O 302 type buses in 1968. In 1970, only two years after its foundation, the company started to export buses, over 12,600 buses being exported to date. In 1984, the company was appointed as the general representative of Mercedes-Benz in Turkey, added with new partners to the enterprise, and started a new investment necessary for production of trucks. In 1986, parallel to the growth potential of Turkey, the truck plant started production in Aksaray. In November 1990, the company name was changed to Mercedes-Benz Türk A.Ş. The company is one of the biggest foreign direct investments in Turkey (with a total investment volume of €807 million) and employs more than 5.000 personnel. Due to increasing export activities, Mercedes-Benz Türk built a new bus plant in Hoşdere, Istanbul, which became active in December 1994. Since its foundation, Mercedes-Benz Türk has sold more than 75,000 buses (from Hoşdere only), 215,000 trucks and 1,000 midibuses from its own production, in addition to 20,000 cars since 1989, when the company started the importation of passenger cars. Mercedes-Benz Türk currently produces intercity (the Travego, Intouro and Tourismo) and municipality buses (the Conecto) at the Hoşdere, Istanbul plant, and light and heavy duty trucks (MB800, Actros, Axor, Atego, and the Unimog) at the Aksaray plant. Mercedes-Benz Türk is the first company in the Turkish primary automotive industry to get the ISO 9002 quality certificate, obtained in 1994 for the Aksaray plant, and ISO 9001 quality certificate, obtained in 1995 for the Davutpaşa, Istanbul and Hoşdere, Istanbul production plants. Furthermore, Mercedes-Benz Türk has the certificate ISO 14001 for environment management standards since May 2000 and the certificates ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 16949 since March 2002. Mercedes-Benz and the VÖV During the 1960s, the Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen (or German Association for Public Transport Operations in English) conducted a project of a highly standardised and specialised bus, to improve the quality, simplify the maintenance and reduce the production costs of buses in Germany – the VÖV-I. Based on the recommendations provided by the VDV, Mercedes-Benz unveiled the O305 regular-service bus in 1967. In 1973 the rural-service bus O307 was presented. It was based on the O305 and