W136

Mercedes-Benz engineered the W136 as a conventional front-engine, rear-drive platform: a 1.7-liter side-valve four, robust ladder-frame chassis, and simple saloon or cabriolet bodies that could be built in quantity without Sindelfingen's coachbuilding overhead. As rearmament and war approached, the same chassis served Kübelwagen and VK military variants — the 170 V's sturdy simplicity made it adaptable when glamour became irrelevant.

From 1936 to 1943 the wartime-era archive tables record 92,037 examples on the W136 chassis — a figure that dwarfs every other pre-war Mercedes passenger line. Postwar production continued on related tooling as a separate chapter; what the W136 achieved in these years was nothing less than carrying Daimler-Benz through crisis.