OM

 

The Italian companies, Grondona Comi & C and Miani Silvestri & C merged in 1899, forming Officine Meccaniche (OM), to manufacture railway equipment. Car production started in 1918 and trucks, in 1925. OM became part of Fiat in 1933 and IVECO, in 1975.

 

 

OM’s car and truck production began with take-over of car maker, Zust, in 1917 and HV has covered OM’s car history in the Car Brands section of this website.

The first OM car, the 1918 Tipo S305, was derived from an existing Zust model that was powered by a 4.7-litre, in-line, four-cylinder, side-valve engine. OM continued to make the S305 until 1923, under the OM brand.

In 1923 came the Tipo 665 ‘Superba’ two-litre, six-cylinder model, with a side-valve engine derived from the Tipo 465 four-cylinder model. This was by far the best known and most successful OM car model.

It seems that the complexity and cost of mounting its brief Grand Prix campaign put off OM’s directors and the company took a completely different direction, following expansion into producing OM tractors, followed by trucks and buses in 1925. 

Licensed Swiss Saurer engines and other mechanical components were used in these commercial vehicles.

 

OM tractor – Machine Trattori

 

OM tractors were interesting for their reliance on ‘hot bulb’ engines that could run on virtually any combustible liquid fuel and OM tractors didn’t adopt diesel engines until the late-1930s.

 

 

Car production ends

 

OM was never a great volume car producer, with only around 7500 having being manufactured since 1918 and, by 1930, the combined effects of the Great Depression, plus increasing competition saw its volumes drop to unsustainable levels.

In 1933, Fiat took over the OM company, principally for its commercial vehicle manufacturing value and OM car production ceased. A prototype car, the OMV Alcyone, that boasted hydraulic brakes and full synchromesh transmission was exhibited but never produced. 

 

OM Taurus 340 – All Pyrenees

 

The principal OM truck models in the pre-WWII period were the three-tonnes-payload Taurus, four-tonnes-payload Ursus and five-tonnes-payload Titano bonnetted models. These trucks looked similar, but the Ursus had more engine output than the Taurus’ 72bhp and the Titano had 137bhp and more trailer towing ability.

 

 

World War II

 

OM Taurus and Titano trucks were used in relatively small numbers any the Italian Army, compared with the supply of medium and heavy trucks from Fiat and Lancia. However, the volume model from OM was the compact Autocarretta, 800kg-payload light truck, gun tractor or personnel carrier that was based on OM car mechanicals. 

 

 

This 4×4 four-wheel-steering machine was developed specifically for use on narrow mountain pathways in the Alps and the Balkans. Depending on vocation, it came on solid rubber or pneumatic tyres and had a very low top speed of 35km/h.

After Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943, the German Wehrmacht  still controlled northern Italy and ordered production of around 2300 Taurus trucks between January 1944 and January 1945.

 

 

Post War

 

 

Unlike Great Britain, which used much of its Marshall Plan money from the USA to prop up Sterling’s value, Italy ploughed its share into re-industrialising. Fiat alone scored US$50 million.

The result was the 1946 introduction of the cab-over-engine (COE) OM Orione that had been designed in 1938. This advanced 4×2 truck featured a 10.5-litre, 130bhp Saurer V8 diesel, five-speed gearbox and eight-tonnes payload capacity. 

 

 

The Orione remained production until 1955, when it was replaced by the Super Orione, with an enlarged 11.5-litre V8 engine that featured mechanical supercharging, for a peak output of 180bhp and the ability tow semi-trailers with GCMs up to 35 tonnes. The Super Orione was also available as a 6×2. The Orione’s five-speed box was replaced by a four-speed with splitter, giving the Super Orione eight forward gears.

The next new product was the 1950 Leoncino COE light truck in the 2.0 to 3.5 tonnes payload range, which began the OM ‘zoological’ nomenclature that lasted until 1968.

 

 

The Leoncino was powered by a 54bhp, 3.8-litre, four-cylinder, direct-injection diesel that was enlarged to 4.2 litres and 67bhp in 1954 and then 4.6 litres and 92bhp in the 1960s. It had a four-speed transmission and a GVM up to 6.5 tonnes.

(As an offshoot, OM started building forklift trucks in Italy in cooperation with Fiat factories from 1951.)

In 1951, OM reintroduced the Taurus name, on the new COE Super Taurus medium duty, rigid truck and semi-trailer hauler. It was powered by a four-cylinder diesel that produced 70-80bhp.

 

 

OM’s later zoological truck model introductions included the 1956 Tigrotto, medium truck that was produced until 1972 and the OM Lupetto that slotted in below the enlarged Leoncino. In 1966 the Daino shared the Leoncino’s powertrain, but with slightly higher load capacity.

 

OM Tigrotto – SMET

 

1963 OM Lupetto – Museo Nicolis

 

At the heavy end, OM introduced the reintroduced Titano name in 1961, on its flagship 4×2 semi-trailer tractor or 6×4 rigid truck. It was powered by a market-leading 260bhp, 10.3-litre, six-cylinder, turbo-diesel engine. The Titano was discontinued in 1968 and effectively replaced by Fiat’s heavier trucks, the Fiat 619 and the Fiat 682.

 

OM Titano

 

In the 1960s and 1970s the light and medium-weight OM truck ranges were well regarded across Europe and were sold in Switzerland as Saurer-OM or Berna-OM; in Austria as Steyr-OM; in France as Unic-OM and in Germany as Büssing-OM.

Also, bus chassis derivates of most OM models were available.

 

 

In 1968 OM was restructured inside the larger Fiat group as part of the Commercial Vehicles division, which also included Fiat and Unic truck brands. 

In 1972, OM’s production was unified with that of the newly formed Fiat Industrial Vehicles and OM’s zoological model names were changed to Fiat’s numerical model nomenclature. However, OM, Unic and Magirus brand names continued on some truck models.

In 1975, all the Fiat Industrial Vehicles brands were absorbed by the new IVECO conglomerate that also included Lancia Special Vehicles and Magirus-Deutz.

The separate OM forklift company merged with the German maker STILL in 2010.