Tucked away in a corner of the quite marvellous Transport Museum in Bratislava is this rather proud-looking Mercedes-Benz 170 (W15), a model first introduced to the world in 1931, although this one is from 1933. Unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October 1931, it’s the sort of car that looks like it should be waiting outside a respectable interwar law firm, engine ticking gently, while its owner discusses tax efficiency and the virtues of punctuality or something similar (not that I want to fall into lazy stereotypes). Wikipedia mentions that nearly all of the production run was sold within Germany and they made a total of 13,775 of them.
This was Mercedes-Benz’s first real stab at mass production with a modern design, aimed more at the professional driver than the boy racer of the time. There isn’t much subtlety to the colour as it’s bright blue, but it does look suitably dignified and it was deliberately smaller and slightly less decadent than previous models as the 1920s depression had cut disposable incomes somewhat.