M18

Hans Nibel and his chief designer Max Wagner spent the early 1930s dismantling the German habit of rigid axles and leaf springs. The Typ 290 of 1933 carried the new thinking — double wishbones and a transverse leaf spring in front, a two-joint swing axle on coil springs at the rear, hydraulic brakes on all four wheels — while the engine under its bonnet stayed pointedly old-fashioned: a side-valve six with a camshaft in the block, good for 60 PS and 108 km/h and nothing beyond. The sophistication went into the chassis; the engine had to be cheap and undemanding.

From 1935 a higher compression ratio lifted it to 68 PS. The 290 was sold on two wheelbases and in a startling spread of bodies for its class — tourers, saloons, four styles of cabriolet, a streamlined saloon, a few Spezial-Roadsters and Kübelwagen for the Wehrmacht — and just over 7,400 were built before the Typ 320 replaced it in 1937. Daimler-Benz tried the same side-valve principle on a straight-eight developed alongside it for the Typ 380 and was not satisfied; that engine was redrawn with overhead valves within a year.