M30

Six closed cars were built for the 2000-kilometer Deutschlandfahrt of 1934 and entered as Sport-Limousinen, in all likelihood for homologation; one of them took on Liège–Rome–Liège that August. Beneath the bodywork was something no other car from the marque had: an overhead-camshaft four lying lengthways in front of the rear axle with the gearbox behind it, the whole drive unit turned through 180° to sort out axle loading. Compressed-air cooling allowed a much smaller radiator, mounted behind the engine over the rear axle and fed by an enclosed engine-driven fan.

Roadsters followed from 1935, several of them converted coupés, and the car sat in the price list at 6,600 Reichsmark. Almost nobody bought one — by one account not a single example ever reached a private customer. The fuel tank occupied the nose so there was no luggage space at all, and the handling never lived up to the shape; fewer than a dozen cars of both bodies were finished before the type was dropped in 1936. The sole surviving roadster belongs to the Mercedes-Benz Museum, and Stuttgart would not build another mid-engined car until the C 111 of 1969.