Colectivo

Colectivo (English: collective bus) is the name given in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay to a type of public transportation vehicle, especially those of Argentina's capital city, Buenos Aires. The name comes from vehículos de transporte colectivo ("vehicles for collective transport"), reflecting their origin as shared taxis.

When they first appeared in the 1920s, colectivos were small buses built out of smaller vehicle chassis (cars, vans, etc.) and, later, out of truck chassis (1950–1990, by Mercedes-Benz Argentina), not specifically designed for the transportation of people, and were decorated with unique hand-painted drawings (fileteado) that gave each unit a distinct flavor.

They steadily evolved and grew larger, but kept their picturesque style until the 1990s, when the urban fleet was modernized with standard rear-engined bus units.

During most of their history, tickets were sold by the driver, who would drive off as soon as all passengers had boarded, selling tickets while driving.

Taxi-bus, Chevrolet Double Phaeton, creation of the "líneas"

In the 1900s Argentina was the "Granary of the World", one of the largest world food producers and exporters, and a wealthy country. The streets of prosperous Buenos Aires (with 2 million inhabitants) soon filled with cars. Commercial relations with the United Kingdom (mainly trade in meat and grain), also brought a myriad of investors and enterprises in the early years of the century, including Latin America's first metro system, cars, trains, tramways, taxis and public buses.

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