M01

Daimler and Benz merged on 28 June 1926, and Porsche, technical director of the new company, had barely four months to fill a catalogue before the Berlin Motor Show that October. He drew three cars, all with six cylinders: the three-liter W03, the two-liter W02, and beneath them the little 5/25 PS. Its side-valve six measured 60 × 82 mm for 1,392 cc and made 25 PS at 3,100 rpm on 5.5:1 compression — a Zenith carburetor, cable brakes on all four wheels, 88 km/h flat out, and six cylinders in a class that had never asked for them.

The board saw the cost rather than the smoothness. A six was judged hopelessly expensive for a small car, the launch was postponed, and Porsche was ordered to find something cheaper to build. Eight W01s were finished as two-door tourers and saloons; none was ever offered for sale. He tried again in 1928 with the W14, the same car around a 1,280 cc four — 28 more prototypes, also stillborn — and by early 1929 Hans Nibel had his job. The M01 endures as a first and a dead end at once: the opening entry in the Daimler-Benz design register, fitted to a car the company never sold.