the west german federal railways db experimented with tilting technology in the 1970s, but abandoned it. then in 1987, db commissioned a study on whether electrification or purchasing diesel tilting trains would be the better option for the nuremberg-hof line, and decided for the latter. in 1988, db ordered 10 tilting dmus, and another 10 in 1990. all 20 trains of the new db class 610 were delivered in 1992. the two-car trains with a top speed of 160 km/h were produced by a consortium of five german companies and fiat ferroviaria. fiat supplied the bogies, the hydraulic tilting suspension, and the other parts of the tilting technology, thus the trains could be called "pendolino" (a fiat trademarked brand name).