During the savage backwash from the Great Depression the W15 was relatively affordable, enabling the manufacturer to retain a major presence in the German auto market in a way that the large expensive cars with which Mercedes-Benz had increasingly been associated during the 1920s never could have done.
A surviving certificate from his school days dated 1899 classified him as "outstanding" in respect of Mathematics, Physics and Drawing, which hints at the specialisms that would best support him in his future career.
Although such features were initially applied on cars designed to race or break speed records, over the next couple of decades they would become increasingly mainstream across the automobile industry.
[1][8] Beyond the automobile business, Nibel introduced improvements for the oil powered engine designed in Sweden by Jonas Hesselman and manufactured at the time by Benz under licence.
At the other end of the range, Benz continued to offer increasingly luxurious models, identified by admirers as "global ambassadors for the excellent cars from Mannheim".
In April 1911 a Blitzen Benz driven by Bob Burman on the sands of Daytona Beach, averaging 228.1 kilometres per hour (141.7 mph) over a full mile.
As head of the design office Nibel had to make drastic changes at the company's premises in Mannheim-Waldhof and Gaggenau in order to adapt production to the needs of the military and at the same time to implement a large number of new development projects.
[1][12] Another important development came in 1920 when Nibel, whose woe design efforts were still largely focused on racing cars at this stage, mandated Kurt Eltze (1878–1973) to set up the company's own production facility for injection pumps and nozzles to deal with "heavy fuel oil".
[1] It was in 1922 that Nibel teamed up with his head of chassis design, Max Wagner, to produce the so-called "Benz-Tropfenwagen" (loosely, "Tear-drop car"), the shape of which pointed the way to the future in terms of what came to be known as "streamlining".
Underneath the pioneering body shape there was more innovation, notably in respect of the "mid-engined configuration", which in this case involved positioning the engine within the wheelbase but behind the driver.
Somewhat confusingly, sources state that the two men worked "gleichberechtigt" (at the same level of authority) within the corporate structure although Porsche (who was five years older than Nibel), nevertheless "carried ultimate responsibility" for the department.
From the operational side of the business Hans Nibel, whose enthusiasm for the merger had never dimmed, was naturally a founder board member of the new company, Daimler-Benz AG.
By this time he had already started work with Max Wagner on a new generation of car designs featuring a Tiefbett ("Underslung") chassis in place of the traditional Hochbett ("Overslung") one, which would provide for a lowered centre of gravity, resulting in better road holding, and allowing for a more fashionably "streamlined" body shape.
Through the 1930s Adler and Opel would follow the company in adopting the Tiefbett ("Underslung") chassis, but during Nibel's time it was something in respect of which Daimler-Benz were leading the pack.
The car was commercially successful, helped by claims that it delivered a 20% improvement in fuel economy when compared to its taller and heavier predecessor, the technical performance which had also, during the previous five years, greatly benefitted from Nibel's inputs.
For small cars unit profitability remained vanishingly low and, at least till the middle part of the decade, the volumes necessary to secure acceptable overall margins were not available in the German market.
Thanks to the strategic model-policy decisions taken during the early 1930s, "Daimler-Benz AG" would emerge at the end of the decade in far better shape financially than most of the domestically owned German auto industry.
He also took a leading role in guiding the design and development of the so-called "Großer Mercedes" launched in its original form 1930, which attracted widespread attention internationally despite selling in relatively small volumes.
The "Kompressor" technology, previously reserved for light-weight racing cars, would also prove to be of lasting value, not leastly for the (significantly more powerful, faster, and more expensive still) "Typ 500K" (W18) offered by the company between 1934 and 1939.
Placing the engine at the same end of the car as the driving wheels implied the possibility of a simplified drive-train with resulting reductions in productions costs and vehicle weight.
And despite it conventional front-engined lay-out the "Typ 170V" boasted a number of pioneering features of its own, including the light-weight but exceptionally rigid X-form oval-tube chassis.
Designed for the newly instigated 750 kg class, the "W25", with independent suspension all round and with Rudolf Caracciola and Luigi Fagioli at the wheel, was conspicuous among the star performers of the 1934 Grand Prix season.
For those with a taste for history, there was in addition much about the car which could be traced back directly to the diesel-powered agricultural vehicles on which Nibel had already worked as head of design and development for "Benz and Cie AG" during the early 1920s.
[1][7] On 25 November 1934, as he was about to board a fast train at the main station in Stuttgart, Hans Nibel suffered a sudden and fatal heart attack.
He had nevertheless been a consummate team worker, and for a number years senior members of the Design and Development department followed his approach and completed projects which Nibel had set in motion.
In 1941, still aged only 59, Sailer retired, reportedly on health grounds, having made relatively little impact on the company's core automobile manufacturing business, which less than one year later was abandoned completely in order that the factory could concentrate on war production.