In engineering terms, the “new” 170 V was a pre-war model – surely a good one but, in its design, clearly more than ten years old. Its side-valve engine corresponded to the state of the art of a bygone age; the trunk was not accessible from outside, and the bodywork, completely separated from its X-shaped tubular frame, was still some way away from the first attempts at self-supporting bodywork design. Nevertheless, the 170 was upgraded gradually.

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