Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evolution II
Why 3.3: 235-hp Cosworth four, a double-wishbone chassis honed for DTM, and a manual as crisp as the E30 M3 it was built to beat. Only 502 were built and six-figure prices now guard every one of them — this is homologation royalty that almost nobody actually drives.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The Cosworth-headed 2.5 sixteen-valve rasps hard all the way to 7,200 and the Evo's exhaust makes no apology for it. But it is a four with no depth underneath, so it is racket rather than melody. Below the great naturally aspirated sixes.
4-cylinder · naturally aspirated · 7,200 rpm redline · rated 7.3 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €74k (1990) → €386k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Built before ISOFIX existed, so there are no anchor points at all. A child seat here is a seatbelt installation, and the belt geometry of the period was not designed with one in mind.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
Mercedes built this purely to keep pace with BMW in DTM homologation rules, which meant the road car inherited genuine touring-car engineering rather than a styling package bolted onto a regular 190E — the big wing and flared arches are functional, not cosmetic. Only 502 exist, and the market has recently woken up hard: a car that traded for used-Golf money a decade ago now clears six figures at auction, sometimes into seven. Forbidden Fruit applies honestly, since it never came to the US, and Homologation Hero is the whole reason it exists at all. The DTM heritage garage drives it more than any private owner does.