Looking for information on old (late 70s) Mercedes 0303 Coaches - Gross Combined Mass

Oh Three Oh Three

Hi all,

First post (from Australia), and probably a bit of a long one.


I own a 1979 Mercedes 0303 Bus/Coach, which has been converted into a
Motorhome. In largely typical fashion at the time, it would have been
shipped here to Australia as a chassis with a front on it, and a local
Coach builder (Ansair) then built the body and commissioned the Coach.

It's a typical 36"/11M MR Bus of the era, running an OM422 (14.6lt V8) and - in this case - an Allison 5-speed auto. trans.

I'm told that many of these coaches towed trailers etc. back in the day,
and some towed reasonably heavy loads (using ring feders etc.).
However, like most buses, the compliance plates on this bus (there are
three, two from Daimler Benz, and one from the local coach builder) do
not have any mention of a Gross Combined Mass (GCM).

I'm hoping to find/be pointed in the direction of someone who might know
of a similar era 0303 which does actually have a GCM nominated on the
compliance plate. If I can find such a thing, I'd be hoping to get some
details to take back to Mercedes here in Australia, so their engineers
can review it (and its similarity to my bus), and (hopefully) provide me
with the documentation I need to have an engineer nominate an actual
GCM for my bus.

The reason I'm doing this?

Without a GCM figure, I'm legally bound to tow within my bus' GVM
envelope. The GVM on my bus is 16T. Loaded, it's around 14.5T, and so
I'm left with ~1.5T of towing capacity. Our car weighs more than that on
its own, so I've no hope of legally towing pretty much anything within
that figure.

I should also add that the bus has a very solid tow mounting and hitch,
which have been there a long time - most likely when the body was built
and the coach commissioned.

But without the appropriate paperwork/compliance information, it's all pretty much useless.

I've reached out to Mercedes, who are "unable" (read unwilling) to find
documentation on similar buses which had GCMs nominated. They've asked
me to find a similar bus, and take the info. to them, hence me reaching
out this way.

I'd appreciate any advice or help people can give, even if it's "reach
out to this person, (or this forum) for the help you need..."

Thanks in advance.

Michael

PS. I get that I'm posting in a sub forum centred around local buses/routes etc. Apologies for that, but I've had zero luck going through more appropriate "local" (to me) channels, so am trying my luck on various European forums, to see if anyone has the information I'm after. Appreciate your understanding.
 

TranslatorPS

I don't mean to discourage you, but there is one initial problem: if I put in "gross combined mass" into Google, I get pretty much only Australian and New Zealand results. You might well struggle to find anything, especially considering it's from 1970s Europe. I'm not implying it doesn't exist, but it's not unlikely that it was not defined at the time (cf. https://wikibus.blob.core.windows.net/sources1158/MB%20O%20303%20RHP%20Reise-Omnibus.pdf or http://www.omnibusarchiv.de/include.php?path=content&mode=print&contentid=319 ).