December

The contract to merge CASA, Aerospatiale Matra S.A. and Dasa to create EADS is signed in Madrid. With an overall workforce of 96,000 and revenues totalling around € 21 billion, EADS is one of the world's three biggest aerospace companies and number one in Europe.

Mercedes-Leasing-GmbH is created by renaming Mietanlagen Industrievertriebs-GmbH, with the result that its main field of activity finds expression also in the company name.

Deutsche Airbus GmbH is formed with headquarters in Hamburg. It encompasses the former MBB Group "Cargo Aircraft and Airliners" and the former Deutsche Airbus GmbH (Munich).

The Daimler-Benz driver teams of Hannu Mikkola/Arne Hertz, Björn Waldegaard/Hans Thorszelius, Andrew Cowan/Rolf Kaiser and Vic Preston Jr./Mike Doughty – all at the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC 5.0 – take the first four places in the Bandama Rally, Côte d'Ivoire.

The new 15/70/100 hp and 24/100/140 hp Mercedes car models are unveiled at the Berlin Motor Show. The two supercharged six-cylinder cars, available in many sporty and prestigious coachwork variants, supersede the 28/95 hp model and are the flagship models of the sales range. Benz & Cie. presents a refuse collection vehicle in cab-over-engine version as a rear tipper with a particularly low loading height.

DaimlerChrysler AG and General Motors Corporation (GM) announce a cooperation to develop hybrid drive systems. The two companies want to jointly push the development of a two-mode hybrid drive which will specifically be used in models of GM, the Chrysler Group and the Mercedes Car Group.

Mercedes-Benz presents the new OM 642 V6 diesel engine which will supplant the five- and six-cylinder in-line engines from the OM 612, OM 647, OM 613 and OM 648 series as of spring 2005. With an output of 165 kW / 224 hp and peak torque of 510 Nm, it is one of the most powerful engines in its class. Exhaust emissions comply with the stringent EU 4 standard; in addition, in Germany the V6 is fitted with a particulate filter as standard.

An LP 813 rolls off the assembly line as the last of the 301,730 light trucks of the LP series manufactured at the Wörth plant.

The finishing touches are put to the first Mercedes-Benz bus to come out of post-war production at the Mannheim plant. The vehicle – an O 3500 model – is the first bus produced in Mannheim after relocation of part of the Sindelfingen facility's bus production to Mannheim. Presented as an O 3250 in May, it is launched onto the market in January 1950 under the new designation, as is the truck it is based on.

After the relaxation of export restrictions for industry in Bizone and the French zone, export sales of Daimler-Benz AG reach DM 6.1 million or 1.8 % of total sales.

The export sales of Daimler-Benz AG total DM 1,027.5 million, exceeding the billion mark for the first time. Car deliveries to the USA increase by 5,320 units to 12,968 vehicles.

Mercédès Société Francaise d'Automobiles, in which both Emil Jellinek and DMG are stakeholders, is founded in Paris. In June 1905 the new company takes over the DMG subsidiaries in Puteaux and Milan, and on 1 January 1906 acquires the distribution rights for Mercedes cars and marine engines previously held by Jellinek.

The number of foreign workers employed at Daimler-Benz AG factories, many of them forced labourers, reaches a peak of about 27,000. Some 10,500 prisoners of war and concentration camp detainees must be added to this figure. Foreign workers and concentration camp prisoners thus account for around 50 % of the overall workforce.

The first units of the new Mercedes-Benz O 405 standard regular service bus, production of which had begun only a short while previously, are delivered to their customers.