Start with what the Mercedes-Benz W18 is: a Shorter chassis 1933–1937: 4-door "Limousine" (sedan/saloon) with 6 side windows / Torpedo-bodied 4-door “Tourenwagen” / 2 & 4-door Cabriolets (various) / / Longer chassis 1934–193 with 2,867 , built from 1933 to 1937, when streamlining and independent suspension were arriving together. What it meant takes a little longer.
How it came about
The Mercedes-Benz W18 was a six-cylinder automobile sold as the Mercedes-Benz Typ 290. Introduced in 1933, it was a smaller-engined successor to the manufacturer's Typ 350 / 370 Mannheim model.
In terms of the German auto-business of the 1930s it occupied a market position roughly equivalent to that filled by the Mercedes-Benz E-Class in the closing decades of the twentieth century. The W18 was replaced in 1937 by the manufacturer’s W142 (Typ 320). Several different models with names incorporating the number "290" were produced by Mercedes-Benz during the 1930s (and later), so to avoid ambiguity the car is frequently identified by the manufacturer's model code, "W18".
The hardware
The engine is 2,867 . 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 2880 mm or / 3300 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the Mercedes-Benz line-up the Mercedes-Benz W18 has a clear place: it replaced the Mercedes-Benz W10; it handed the line to the Mercedes-Benz W142 / Mercedes-Benz 320A; the factory was Stuttgart, Germany. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Bugatti Type 57, the Chevrolet Suburban, the British Motor Corporation Austin 12/4. Its Mercedes-Benz stablemates include the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and the Mercedes-Benz C124.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Mercedes-Benz W18 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.