This retro-inspired Mercedes 190E racer is heading to the Nurburgring 24 Hours

Max Verstappen’s participation is now confirmed, so there will be no shortage of interest in this year’s Nurburgring 24 Hours. But it isn’t just entrants into the SP9 class for GT3 cars that are garnering attention.

BMW’s announcement that it is entering its M3 Touring 24H – an estate version of its M4 GT3 EVO that was originally announced as an April Fools’ jape in 2025 – into the SPX class for special vehicles has delighted fans by evoking Volvo’s arrival into the British Touring Car Championship with the 850 estate in 1994.

But HWA has gone the extra mile to indulge retro touring car aficionados with its three-car programme – also entered in SPX – in an eye-catching start to life as an independent entity. As a silent partner in Mercedes-AMG’s customer racing operations for the past 15 years, it has emerged from the shadows following AMG’s decision to take things in house and is revelling in its new-found freedom.

“We had this kind of exclusivity contract, doing motor racing only with AMG,” HWA chief technical officer Gordian von Schoening tells Autosport. “Now that we don’t have this anymore, we are released to do our own stuff. We’re more than happy to be a race team again. Now it’s all in our hands.”

To explain why HWA has built the EVO.R, a racing variant of its road-going EVO super saloon ‘reimagining’ of the Mercedes 190E 2.5-16 Evo II, a history lesson is required. The company bearing the initials of founder Hans Werner Aufrecht was until 1999 part of AMG, which Aufrecht also co-founded as a specialist preparer of Mercedes competition engines.

When a controlling interest in AMG was bought by DaimlerChrysler, Aufrecht retained the motorsport department and HWA was born, though close ties remained. The successful collaboration that turned the 190E homologation special into a potent DTM weapon would not be forgotten. 

EVO.R completed more than 1200 miles during five-day test at Portimao

Photo by: HWA

It had won the title in 1992 with Klaus Ludwig, while Roland Asch finished second in 1993, winning over legions of fans in the process. Among them was a young Markus Winkelhock, today a three-time winner of the Nurburgring 24 Hours in Audi GT3 machinery.

Despite offers to contest this year’s N24 in SP9, he viewed the “really unique” EVO.R programme as an opportunity too good to miss – even if he is under no illusions that “with the EVO.R we will not fight for victory there”.

“My uncle [tin-top legend Joachim] was racing in the 1990s DTM for BMW against the Mercedes 190 and so this car since my childhood is something special to me,” he explains. “That’s why I’m very proud that I’ve got the opportunity to do this.” 

“This car since my childhood is something special to me. That’s why I’m very proud that I’ve got the opportunity to do this” Markus Winkelhock

The inclusion of period liveries and sponsors only adds to the appeal, not only for Winkelhock but for von Schoening too. “People will like it, it will have a lot of attention,” he predicts. And continuing the links to the past, the sons of leading 190E drivers will be joining the line-up.

Luca Ludwig and Sebastian Asch, who paired up to win the ADAC GT Masters title in 2015, will join Winkelhock when the EVO.R makes its race debut in NLS3. The second car features Jamie Green, formerly on HWA’s books in DTM, IMSA ace Renger van der Zande, Nordschleife expert Lance David Arnold and silver-graded American Adam Adelson.

The full three-car roster – increased from the originally planned two, due to overwhelmingly positive feedback and interest from customers – had yet to be announced at the time of writing. 

Tech boss von Schoening’s expectations for the car exceeded during testing

Photo by: HWA

Going racing with the limited-edition EVO was never part of the original plan, but developed gradually over the summer of 2024 when CEO Martin Marx suggested that a logical way to prove the capabilities of its track-capable car would be to race it on the Nordschleife.

He had first made the comment while at the Pebble Beach golf resort in California before a visit to Laguna Seca, von Schoening recalls, where Marx remarked that he was more comfortable at the race track than on a golf course. That is only to be expected given his background as a DTM race engineer at a time when the HWA-run Mercedes works team was the benchmark.

Eight DTM drivers’ titles were collected between 2000 and the marque’s departure in 2018. HWA briefly collaborated with R-Motorsport on its short-lived Aston Martin Vantage DTM programme in 2019 and simultaneously pivoted to single-seaters, entering Formula E as a precursor to Mercedes fielding its own team, while also taking in spells in Formula 2 (2020-21) and Formula 3 (2019-21) before selling both entries to Van Amersfoort Racing. 

“It was too much at the time,” admits EVO.R project leader von Schoening, who believes HWA is “more focused” now. That quality was necessary to execute a tight turnaround on the EVO.R. 

“The car has been built in a very short time, around 100 days,” the engineer explains. “Therefore, you have to be quick in changing, doing evaluations and doing loops. And I think this is our strength; figuring out what needs to be improved and then improving it in a very short time.”

Development of a 30-year-old design to build the road-going EVO was extensive and involved wind tunnel work to establish an aerodynamic baseline. The result is a car almost incomparable to a standard 190E; von Schoening says the only carryover is “very little pieces of the chassis”.

While EVO.R won’t be a contender for overall victory, it’s set to be a big hit with fans

Photo by: Gruppe C Photography

“It’s not a rebuilt 190, it’s completely different,” he stresses. “We’re talking about a new car that looks like an old 190. It has nothing to do with it, because all the performance and safety-relevant topics are newly developed. The main chassis is completely new.”

Although the EVO already had many of the fundamentals in place with a front mid-engine, transaxle gearbox and double wishbone suspension, further changes to prepare for 24 hours on the Nordschleife were inevitable. “In the beginning, the idea was not to modify that much on the car,” von Schoening explains, but the changes proved “quite simple”.

Different dampers and a new safety fuel cell were introduced, while chassis alterations were required to accommodate an FIA-spec rollcage. Aerodynamic tweaks include arches to facilitate wider wheels, and a new splitter and rear wing. HWA “created a complete new electronic environment” too, incorporating an ECU which von Schoening describes as “the most important and biggest change” – developed with Bosch. 

“Now we have about 550 horsepower and even more torque. The road car is already 600Nm of torque, but now we are going above that” Gordian von Schoening

The twin-turbo three-litre V6 engine has also been extensively modified from the road-going powerplant, which “is already nothing to do with the Mercedes engine it’s based on”. Although the dry sump, cylinder head and block are reused, “all other components are different” to withstand the loads it will face at the Green Hell – including the camshaft and crankshaft, rods and pistons.

“Now we have about 550 horsepower and even more torque,” von Schoening enthuses. “The road car is already 600Nm of torque, but now we are going above that.” 

The result left Winkelhock impressed during a productive five-day test at the Algarve Circuit. “It feels like a proper touring car,” he grins. By comparison with the GT3s, the EVO.R has “less downforce, a little bit more weight; you have more mechanical grip, a little bit more rolling”. But Winkelhock reckons that the package is close to being sorted and predicts “we will have a lot of fun on the Nordschleife”. 

Keke Rosberg drove a Mercedes 190E 2.5-16 Evo II to fifth place in the 1992 DTM championship

Photo by: Getty Images

“We’re already at maybe 90%,” he remarks. “I’m convinced that, from the testing we did in Portimao, we have quite a good car. It was very reliable already. There’s little things here and there we maybe need to change but as it looks now, it’s really promising. I’m very surprised, I have to say.”

With the car completing over 1200 miles in Portugal, von Schoening’s expectations were exceeded too. “We’re very proud of that,” he says. “We know now what we have to improve.”

Winkelhock’s impressions of HWA leave him in no doubt that this will happen: “They are a professional race team and this you could feel at the test. The mechanics, the engineers are on a high level – everybody is super-motivated.”

While von Schoening agrees that “we will not be in a fight with GT3 cars” for overall honours – things have moved on since Opel won the 2003 edition with a DTM-spec Astra – he does anticipate that the EVO.R will lap quicker than GT4s and at a pace comparable with Porsche Cup machinery. 

Regardless of how it performs, the car will turn heads. It is difficult to disagree with Winkelhock’s assessment that the EVO.R “has potential to be one of the fan favourites”.

Two EVO.Rs had already been pre-sold to private buyers at the time of writing and it may be that demand increases significantly, though HWA hasn’t ordered any more building to commence just yet. For von Schoening, there are high hopes that this is the start of an exciting new chapter for HWA. 

“This is the first time that we’re showing up independently, and that was always our strategy – come into a category, figure out what’s happening and then start on a lower target,” he reflects. “It is definitely not the last time we are going to go and race the Nurburgring. And our clear goal is, at some point, to win an overall race.”

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the May 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

Three-car Nurburgring 24 Hours entry a showcase for HWA’s independent status

Photo by: Gruppe C Photography