A £750,000 Mercedes 190E Evo II Recreation Is In The Works

Reviving the icons of the ‘90s is the trend of the moment for restomodding firms. Notably, the recent Maturo Stradale is a Lancia Delta remastered for those looking for road-going Group A rally nostalgia, and it hasn’t been all that long since the Prodrive P25 arrived as arguably the ultimate GC8 Impreza. This time, it’s the turn of the Mercedes 190E Evo II.

HWA is the firm responsible for this new revival project, and you could argue there’s nobody better positioned. As a race team, it was responsible for Mercedes’ DTM efforts throughout the ‘00s and even handled the production of the road-going CLK GTR homologation special. More recently, it had a hand in developing the Pagani Huayra R (powered by an AMG engine, remember) and the Apollo IE.

What exactly will the HWA EVO be then? From the sketches, it’s fortunately not going to stray too far from the 190E Evo II’s original design – not that it could get much more extreme, really, with its blistered arches and gigantic rear wing. It does appear to be getting a set of turbofan-style wheels, though.

HWA is remaining quiet on performance figures and more specific details of the EVO, save to say they’re “currently being finalised”. It has confirmed that it’s based on the W201 series, suggesting more sedate versions will be sacrificed rather than carving up any of the original 500 Evo IIs for the project, and the finished cars will feature “state-of-the-art” powertrain and chassis technology.

The original Evo II used a 2.5-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder with 232bhp on hand, though we’d be willing to put £5 on that figure passing 300bhp in the HWA recreation.

HWA has confirmed that prices will start at €714,000 (approx. £625,000) before taxes. All in, that’ll be at least £750,000 in the UK, then. It’ll be 5x as rare as the original car, with only 100 units set for production.