OM 665 S3 2-seat Open Sports By Short Brothers
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Car producer : |
OM |
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Model: |
665 S3 2-seat Open Sports By Short Brothers |
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Year: |
1923-1925 |
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Type: |
Roadster |
Officine Meccaniche or OM was an Italian car and truck manufacturing company, founded in 1918 in Milan as Societa Anonima Officine Meccaniche. It disappeared as such in 1975 subsumed into Iveco, but still exist as a forklift builder.
The inception of the company had resulted from the merger of two companies, Grondona Comi & C and Miani Silvestri & C.
Originally, OM manufactured railway stock. Car production started in 1918, using the plant of the former Brixia-Zust (Brixia-Züst), just after OM took over Zust car company of Brescia, Northern Italy. The first OM car, Tipo S305, primarily an old Zust model, appeared in 1918 with a 4712 cc four-cylinder side-valve in-line engine.
Designed by the Austrian-born engineer Lucien Barratouch and introduced in 1920, the first model of wholly OM design - were Tipo 465 (with a 1327 cc four) in 1919, Tipo 467 (1410cc) and Tipo 469 (1496cc) (OM type nomenclature being the number of cylinders followed by the bore dimension in millimetres) in 1921. 1923 saw an all new model, Tipo 665 'Superba' with a 2-litre six-cylinder engine. This model was extremely successful in racing - won top five positions in the 2-litre class in 1925 and 1926 at Le Mans but the greatest achievement was the victory in the first Mille Miglia race in 1927 where Ferdinando Minoia and Giuseppe Morandi lead home an O.M. '123' at average speed of 48.27 miles per hour (77.7 km/h) for 21 hours 4 minutes 48seconds. Some cars were equipped with Roots superchargers.
In 1925 OM began to build trucks and buses, using licensed Swiss Saurer engines and other mechanical components. Ties with Saurer persisted all along OM life.
OM was taken over by the Fiat Group in 1938 and in the following year passenger car production ceased, and OM became a commercial vehicle and train part manufacturer.
