With the economy still reeling from the successive after shocks that followed the Wall Street crash, , the manufacturer's Technical Director, conceived of the 170 as a compact light-weight car. Mercedes-Benz had by then become known as a manufacturer of large expensive cars that tended to grow larger and less affordable with each upgrade: the 170 of 1931 represented a conscious strategy of broadening the range down market, a pattern that would be repeated with the 190 in 1982 and A-Class in 1997.