We Rendered A V8 Mercedes 190E Evo II Restomod, And Someone Built One To Race The Nürburgring 24 Hours
The original Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evo II was a homologation special built to help Mercedes win in DTM, and it delivered titles in the early ’90s. That racing pedigree has made it one of the most wanted sedans of its era, and it has deserved a proper modern revival ever since. So we designed our own Evo II restomod for the modern era, with a race-bred AMG V8 under the hood and today’s tech throughout.
Our version was meant to be a dream build, the kind that lives only in renders and phone wallpapers. Then someone built a real modern Evo II and raced it at the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours, proving dreams do come true, even if the real thing took a different path to get there.
The HotCars 190E Evo II Restomod Keeps The DTM Attitude
The HotCars Evo II keeps the boxy silhouette that made the original a ’90s poster car, then turns every detail up. Mercedes built only 502 examples of the original Evo II to homologate it for DTM racing, and our render leans hard into that race-car heritage.
Up front, slatted LED headlights made of horizontal light bars replace the original units. They frame a blacked-out slatted grille, and a deep front splitter sits just above the pavement.
The hood gets the render’s most dramatic detail, a raised cutout with eight polished intake trumpets poking through. It tells you something far more serious than a four-cylinder lives underneath.
Swollen widebody arches cover deep-dish wheels with polished lips, and the car sits just inches off the ground. Extended side skirts carry a side-exit exhaust in the sill, adding a race-car touch you can spot from the side.
The rear wing is even more extreme than the original’s famous adjustable wing. It towers over the trunk on tall uprights and pairs with a deep diffuser below the bumper. The taillights match the headlights with glowing red and amber bars stacked across the rear.
The whole car is finished in gloss black, a nod to the original’s launch color. The first 500 Evo IIs came only in blue-black metallic, and just the last two cars were painted silver.
A Race-Bred AMG 4.0-Liter V8 BiTurbo Powers Our Evo II
Under that hood cutout, we imagined a race-bred version of AMG’s 6.2-liter naturally aspirated V8, the engine that powered the SLS AMG and the brand’s GT3 race car. Eight polished trumpets feed individual throttle bodies, giving the engine bay a look and a howl straight out of a touring car paddock.
In the SLS AMG Black Series, this V8 made 622 hp, so a race-bred version would have no trouble embarrassing the original Evo II. That car made 232 hp from a Cosworth-developed 2.5-liter four-cylinder, which was plenty for DTM in 1990 but tame by modern standards.
Power goes to the rear wheels through AMG’s SPEEDSHIFT 7G, a seven-speed twin-clutch transmission that replaces the torque converter with a wet start-off clutch. It gives the classic sedan quick shifts and sharp launches while keeping it easy to drive on the street.
Adjustable coilovers let the car sit just inches off the ground without crashing over every bump. Big modern brakes hide behind the deep-dish wheels, and the wider track under the widebody arches helps the chassis put all that V8 power down.
The interior would get the same treatment, with modern electronics and driver aids tuned to keep the extra power usable. The result is a 190E that looks like it rolled out in 1990, but drives like a modern AMG.
HWA Built A Real One With A V6 And Raced It At The Nürburgring
HWA AG, the firm founded by AMG co-founder Hans Werner Aufrecht, built its own modern Evo II called the EVO, along with a race version called the EVO.R. The idea is strikingly close to ours, but the two projects came together completely independently.
HWA skipped the naturally aspirated V8 in favor of a heavily reengineered version of the M276 twin-turbo V6 from the previous-generation S-Class. In the EVO.R, it makes 552 hp and 494 lb-ft, sent through a sequential six-speed transaxle. Our render pairs its screaming V8 with a nine-speed MCT instead.
Both cars modernize the Evo II’s face with LED lighting, but ours goes further. HWA uses LED twin headlights around a blacked-out grille, while the HotCars render swaps them for slatted light bars front and rear. Both also run a massive rear wing, with the EVO.R adding adjustable aero tuned for the Nordschleife.
HWA took not one, but three EVO.Rs to the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours, and all three finished in the SP-X class. Two scored class podiums, taking second and third behind the factory-backed BMW M3 Touring 24H.
HWA will build 15 customer EVO.R race cars based on those Nürburgring machines. All 100 road-going EVOs, priced at around $835,000 each, are already sold.
Our naturally aspirated V8 Evo II still lives only in pixels, while HWA’s turbocharged V6 version has already survived 24 hours at the Green Hell. If a render can end up this close to a real race car, never stop dreaming.
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