It is Ferdinand Porsche's last work at Daimler-Benz. He had already made racing engines out of eight cylinders. Here, however, we are talking about the engine for a heavy sedan. Mercedes had until then only produced up to six cylinders in series, but unlike the engines of the Nürburg with supercharging. So they surpassed it in power, as racing engines also by a different engine control.

Mercedes was forced to develop an eight-cylinder engine, because Porsche's predecessor, Paul Daimler, had already developed such an R-8 for Horch in 1926. However, it differed significantly from Porsche's SV engine. It had two overhead camshafts that were driven by a king shaft.

The car is allegedly called Nürburg because it had been tested there over 20,000 km in 13 days. However, one may assume that this was a tribute to the triple victory led by Rudolf Caracciola a year bevore at the opening of the Nürburgring. There are corresponding publicity photos with Caracciola standing next to a Mercedes Nürburg.

The car is presented in Paris in October and must have been the attraction of the International Motor Show in Berlin in November, although there were other eight-cylinder cars on display, the Opel Regent and the Röhr 8. However, they soon disappeared from the scene or never really entered it. The Mercedes Nürberg, however, remained and was even being further developed.

However, it did not remain the first choice for Mercedes' prestige cars, because at the end of 1930 the 770 came with an eight-cylinder engine and compressor. In addition, Horch continues to give fierce competition, initially because of the technically more complex engine selling at a lower price. In 1930, the engine capacity was increased to 5 litres. Mercedes followed suit a year later.

In 1933, Horch even came up with a V-8 engine, to which Stuttgart did not respond until early 1936 with a little more power. The Nürberg designation had long since been replaced by '500 N', the bodywork by a slanted radiator grille and windscreen to make it more aerodynamic.