The Mercedes-Benz W02 is a Torpedo-bodied "Tourenwagen" / 2- & 4-door "Limousine" (sedan/saloon) / Cabriolets from Mercedes-Benz, built from 1926 to 1933, the vintage years, when coachbuilders still shaped most of what was sold. Under the bonnet: 1,988 .
Where it came from
The Mercedes-Benz W02 was a midsize six-cylinder two-litre-engined automobile introduced by Daimler-Benz at the Berlin Motor Show in October 1926.
It was developed in some haste under the manufacturer's Technical Director, Ferdinand Porsche in parallel with the smaller Mercedes-Benz W 01 (which never progressed beyond the prototype stage) and the larger three-litre-engined Mercedes-Benz W03 following the creation of Daimler-Benz, formally on June 28 1926, from the fusion of the Daimler and Benz & Cie auto-businesses. The new company's models for 1926 were unencumbered by an excess of technical sophistication, but came from a company with a long-standing reputation for quality: serious teething problems afflicting the early cars were the focus of conflict between Daimler-Benz Chairman, Wilhelm Kissel and the Technical Director responsible for the new models: Porsche's employment contract was not renewed beyond 1928, which led to acrimonious litigation.
Under the skin
Power comes from 1,988 . The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 2810 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its family tree is legible: assembly was at Stuttgart, Germany. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Bugatti Type 41 Royale, the Bentley Speed Six, the Delage Type 15 S 8 — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Mercedes-Benz catalogue sit the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and the Mercedes-Benz C124.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Mercedes-Benz W02 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.