The BMW E30 M3 is great and all, but if you want a racy German touring car from that era that really wows the crowd, what you need is a Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5 16V Evo II. But it doesn’t just look good, it sounds absolutely incredible as well. And I don’t mean “it sounds good for a four-cylinder,” it sounds wild FULL STOP.
“Well of course it’s going to sound good, you ingrate,” you say. “It’s a racy Mercedes from an earlier era, it MUST sound good.”
To which I reply that no, it is in fact, YOU who is the ingrate, because if you look at its specs, you’d hardly think it should make a good noise. Just a piddly 2.5-liter four-pot putting out 232 horsepower, which is really nothing too crazy these days. But back in 1990, those sort of specs made it a screamer.
Or a roarer, or a growler, or a wailer, as you can determine for yourself as this one pounds around the Nürburgring:
Like I said, the E30 M3 is great and all, but if I’m going to be spending a couple hundred thousand dollars on a quick little early 1990s German touring sedan (as one does), I’d get one of these.
Except I’d have to change the name. “Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5 16V Evo II” is a mouthful. Would have to call it Fred, or something.