Excerpts from the book:

To balance off the higher center part of the hood, the fenders had to be more pronounced than in competitor's ponton cars. Although this made the Mercedes ponton look less modern, it served the purpose well: to attract a more traditionally minded generation, who appreciated that fenders had not been totally abandoned. Although the radiator is lower than on the Mercedes 170, it is still a proud testament to the Mercedes heritage. Designing the Mercedes Benz ponton car into the expectations of those Mercedes-Benz customers was for sure not an easy task. But when one looks at the sales figures of the Mercedes ponton in all its variations, which we will talk about a bit later in this book, it becomes obvious that Karl Wilfert and his team had done an outstanding job>>>

<<<Talking about the engine, no really good news here, as it was still the old flathead M136 four cylinder, carried over from the Mercedes 170Sb. Something the automotive press was not too thrilled to hear, although they universally agreed that the new Mercedes ponton delivered overall a very nice package. Also the suspension, which still used double wishbones in front and simple swing axles in the back like on the Mercedes 170, was not exactly an engineer’s dream in 1953>>>