M136

Nothing about it was ambitious. A side-valve 1.7-liter four with the valves standing in a row down the right of the block, a three-bearing forged crankshaft, a duplex chain to the camshaft and an updraft Solex carburetor — 38 PS, and conventional even in 1936. It went into the 170 V and the rear-engined 170 H, and by the late 1930s the 170 V had become the company's best-selling car. What mattered afterwards was that its tooling survived the bombing, or could be recreated from what did.

On 22 February 1946 the first M136 was completed at Untertürkheim, the first engine Daimler-Benz finished after the war. Flatbeds, vans and ambulances followed that May; the four-door 170 V saloon returned in July 1947 as the only passenger car Mercedes-Benz sold, and just 1,045 were built that year. A wartime variant had run on wood gas at 22 PS. Bored to 75 mm in 1950 it gave 45 PS, and 52 PS in the 170 S, and it stayed in the 180 until 1957, when the overhead-cam M121 finally retired it.