Mercedes Invented the Diesel Passenger Car
That car was the Mercedes 260D. It packed a 2.6L four-banger and made a whopping 45hp, and could reach a top-speed of 59 mph. Even in context of the time it was built, it was considered slow. But it was also the first of it’s kind and still offered the torque of much larger engines in a smaller package. Even though it wasn’t that fast, it did succeed in looking good. And let’s be honest, if you can’t be fast, you might as well look good going slow.
Apparently, Germans felt the same way. The 260D was popular. 2,000 were made before Mercedes stopped production in 1940. At which point the company began shifting their attention from building passenger cars to military vehicles.