Mercedes 190E W201: The Original Compact Sport Sedan
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- The Mercedes Benz 190E was the first compact sport sedan that paved the way for many that followed after. In this video I take a look at a 1993 190E 2.6 with the rare Sportline option. This was offered in the U.S. for only one year, and it is believed that only about 700 or so Sportlines with the 2.6-liter engine were sold in the U.S.
W201's can't do any wrong with me. Always loved them.
I think This Car Is Best Ever Made design and Relability.
I've had two of them but my Volvo's have all been more reliable & cheaper!
But of course no where near as pretty 😊
@@iainherridge6253bro never compare volvo to benz hahahahhah
Volvos were so rough to drive that they were mostly handled like an old fragile entity therefore weren’t worn out that much which lead to higher reliably …
As a Dane sandwich between German and Swedish, I say the both are reliable AF! Design the baby-Benz wins, but safety and engine durability some Volvos just don’t break even without oil (true and tested)..
However, going to look at a 190E 2.6 (without any add ons except leather and AC) otherwise they are just too expensive now, almost like the E30’s
I have a black '91 190e 2.6... couldn't believe how smooth and clean it is. So well balanced. Love the following behind this car too. Wish I had that sportline interior though.
Very nice video! I especially like those big drone shots. The 190s have always looked great to me but now they look even better, and are wonderful representatives of a by-gone era of car design and building.
As a german, the sentence "you don´t really see 190s around" incredibly funny, since here they are still around every corner
Yea, it's not a car we see too often around here.
plenty in the UK too, I've had 4 of them!
@@chrisbarlow9741 still have.
@@chrisbarlow9741I'd disagree with that, been living in Exeter for 12 years, and apart from my own I don't think I've seen more than three or four.
Thanks for bringing back some serious nostalgia. I picked up my first Benz in 2001, a '88 190E 1.8, gold of course, peppy four cylinder engine, 4 speed automatic, still looking fresh with 145K miles on it. It was solid and responsive at high speeds, lots of fun on the interstates. It did have oversteer. I once threw the rear end out in a last second maneuver avoiding running over a tire at 80 mph, and thought I'd lost it. But sure enough, the suspension kicked in right on cue and I could recover quickly. The guys at Stuttgart thought of everything.
At around 205,000 miles the engine would take forever to start and a couple of times quit unexpectedly while driving. Oil was fouling the spark plugs. So, facing an engine rebuild, middle Atlantic rust on the fenders and trim, and shiny clear coat wearing off alongside the roof, I reluctantly gave it up in 2011, a 10 year love affair, for a shiny gold 2001 E320 4MATIC, V-6, with only 45K miles on it, no rust, silently glides down the road at 80 mph in fifth gear at a comfortable 2800 rpm. This W210 is really nice for long trips. The road is yours, at the end of the trip, almost as good as sex!
Still miss that old 190E. It's a perfect little sedan, tight, efficient, business like, and an elegant understatement on the road. Wish I still had it.
The 190e definitely impressed me, since I had never driven one before we acquired this example.
You described the feeling so well. I have a w203 C240 but with an engine swap to a 3.2 from the C320. It's an absolute joy to drive.
It's a phenomenal road trip car and I don't have to take it past 2800 - 3000 RPM for a nice long cruise doing 75 -90mph comfortably. I like lazy cruising so I don't typically do higher speeds than that. The cabin is nice and quiet and it filters out a lot of road noise and outside ambient noise.
It worlds better than my E120 Corolla I had before it.
I can imagine just how much better your E class will be. I would have loved to have one but i prefer the smaller, more nimble C class.
Just stopped by for some 190e love and wasn’t disappointed. We recently purchased a 1990 190e SportLine in near-perfect condition. Ours is a four-cylinder, four-speed, and just a wonderful car to drive. Thanks for the great video.
I just bought a 1 owner 93 2.6........ absolutely love it.
have fun when it leaves you stranded somehere. mine crapped out on the freeway. THE Engine control module went out, second time, the fuel pump went out... ahhaah. fcuk those cars
I have a 1989 2.6 Sportline Auto here in the UK, you're very right in your review of these cars, compliant yet when you get up it the chassis is rather impressive little adjustable drivers car. 👍🏻
My favourite Mercedes model, thank you for posting this video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I own a 1993 190E 2.3 sportline (not 16V) and absolutely adore it. My dad used to drive me to school in it. Now I enjoy the long, empty, winding backroads of South Africa. It's not fast, but it takes the bends so well. The aircon is broken and the leather seats are a killer under the hot African sun---I need to fix this!
These are definitely great cars.
Great explained how well it handles with ‘confident’ body roll. Excellent driving scenes. Thanks for this very savvy driving video (which most car channels lack)!
My first Mercedes was an 89 190E 2.6, very fun car to drive. I had a manual one as well that was even more fun. Sportlines are becoming harder to find.
Two thumbs way up 👍👍
Those are even more rare than the sportlines.... I believe there was only 1100 across the entire production run. I have a white one in California, where in the country was yours?
@@chasewray3 Detroit Michigan, and yes indeed the Manual 2.6s are extremely rare. Just another car I shouldn't have sold lol.
Would sport line make sense in a 1.8? I don't think 110hp need firm suspension..
Same here, except that mine was an automatic. How do you like the shifter? I was advised by the salesman (who also was a personal friend) that Mercedes’ manuals weren’t that great, and I’d be happier with the automatic, so that’s what I went with.
@@eclexian it wasn't the smoothest shifter in the world, but definitely more fun and felt power compared to the Auto.
Nice video
I have a 91 190E 2.6 (canadian version) and I agree with you on every thing.
That's Impossible to drive this car slow 🤣🤣🤣
The car always make you drive Faster and Faster
I think it is because of the engine sound, very smooth until the red line, and you get Addicted to drive fast 😎😎😎
Thanks for sharing
Amazing Car, Amazing sound , acceleration, interior and handling
Just seen this. Im still a proud owner of one of those rare 16 valve 190e's. All can say is its a fast car from a different era. At speeds over 90 mph, the engine just screams at 4500 rpm and above and the exhaust just has that distinct note only a 201.034 has. I still love mine but it definitely shows its age in the modern german car family.
Great video and great car! Thank you for sharing!
Excellent presentation. Love the drone angles !!!!
Stock 2.6 easily sees around 190hp with little more than a 22/62, 11mm bolt in camshaft replacement (stock is 16/58 and 10mm lift). The impressive CIS-E3 injection is capable of compensating the self tune out of the box completely unmodified and the locked out ignition timing doesn't play much of a role, I have an original AMG ignition module for these and with that camshaft it made very marginal, practically unnoticeable difference to the stock ignition module at the Superbenzine marker (standard setting for export NAM deliveries), there's a very subtle difference in curves about mid range that makes little difference, it self tunes just fine dynamically on the factory closed loop narrow band and it's simple bolt in horsepower.
You can also swap in the identical, but 3.0 litre capacity motor from the W124 300E too which, with the camshaft/exhaust gets you bang on about 200hp from an otherwise bone stock motor and it starts getting fun, not super fast but definitely fun. Some pretty quick cars like older GTI or early WRX have little over 200hp and the same weight so it starts to feel like one of those and that's damn fun in an 80s grandpa baby benz. There's not really much difference between a stock used 2.6 and a stock used 3.0 with the camshaft however, barely 10hp and just a slightly broader torque curve you hardly feel, I wouldn't even bother if you had a real good 2.6. Without the camshaft the 3.0 is significantly more powerful than the 2.6 however, it's only superfluous if you cam them.
If you do what I did and go full hand machined engine build with 30/70 and 12.7mm you need a ground up EFI conversion or the valve overlap and vacuum loss sends the entire Bosch injection system into a mental breakdown regardless of ECU conversion kits and software, the mechanical elements just won't compensate despite working so remarkably well in the stock engine and it absolutely needs fully modernised electronic engine management. So that makes it about as expensive to go for 250-300hp n/a as it is to go for 400-500hp with boost, minus the cost of the boost pump itself, I mean in terms of basic engine build costing.
So mine's 285hp n/a from basically the original engine, but that was horrifically expensive and wouldn't have cost much more to bolt in a bar of boost for close to 400hp, so I'll have to do that eventually just from a cost-benefit point of view.
But back at the start of that road doing bolt in things before the engine rebuild and seriously, the bolt in cam swap is the best thing you can do for the stock 2.6 on these, the K-jet self tunes for it and just bolts in and what you're putting in it is straight up about 30hp. There are very few n/a motors you can just bolt in power like that, maybe 10-15hp but not that much that easily.
There's a Norwegian Alex iirc, Lindquist who races a white one over there, it's in all the magazines, I used to talk to him on 190rev website. His is a bone stock 3.0 M103 motor which is just the 3.0 version of the 2.6 original engine, he just bolted a big turbo on with an EFI conversion and dialled it for 2 bar, otherwise not a single part was anything but factory and that has about 700hp and never broke until he put some dodgy valve springs in it trying to raise the rpm range. Bone stock these are unbreakable engines, nothing else can handle 2 bar factory stock but an M103 iron block six cylinder, it's a fricken tank motor.
You see a ton of those here in Portugal. And i just bough one 2 weeks ago with 450 000 km in awesome conditions. Mine is a regular 2.0D with the Sportsline interior seats
What about the 1.8 ?? Is it good ?!
@@ratebbannour8383 90% of the 190's in Portugal are diesel. Most of them are the 2.0D
@@ratebbannour8383 and you really see tons of these cars in Portugal. 5 just in my neighborhood. There is not a single day that i don't see several on the road. Not only the w201, but also the w124 and also the 200 model
I wanna show you a video of the car that i want to buy , can you send me a message on messenger plz
Yep I got the exact same vehicle got it at 93 black leather ……..And I got 132,000 miles on it I still drive it every once in a while
Great review; thank you.
Thanks for watching!
I have a 2.5D, so naturally I can't speak about performance, but what I'm deeply impressed by is the roadholding. It's really that cliche about being on tracks.
Finally…thank you for the video. I have 3
Great video and great car! I recently almost bought one of these with the 2.3l. But then I found a Porsche 924 S in almost mint condition and low miles, and went for that one, which you also made great video of. Seems we have a similar taste haha. Cheers!
Great video 👍🏻
Glad you enjoyed
very cool car
Looks better than any sedan today. Let alone SUV's... This compact sedan would be enough for 90% of people but no... Gotta have three-ton SUV...
At 1:32 I do not see any licence plate monted on the front bumper. Ist it possible to drive without it in the USA? Thw middle console with the push buttons seem to be a 'special version', as in my '86 this place was intended for radio and ashtray mounting. Also the dimensions of the tyres andd their rims are special edition. A very informative video. Hope that the design of 21st century cars will come back to the elegant 'less is more' Bauhaus style that the W201 designed by Bruno Sacco was so perfectly embodied.
There were only 700 Sportline 190e 2.6 LE. There were a ton of Sportlines made.
Correct.
In Europe they might be common, but not in the U.S.
@@Retromod Its a great video about the car and yes Sportlines are rare but the quote about only 700 is what I am referring to. MB only made 700 190e 2.6 LE Sportlines.
the Sportline is no slouch, but I would argue that the 2.3-16 (whose debut was in 1983) was the original compact sport sedan.
You're right about that. The 2.3-16 is even better!
190 is really a compact luxury sedan / saloon not a sport sedan / saloon. They made a vaguely sporty version with the 16v models. But predominantly, it's a compact luxury car.
Fair enough. I would say a 190 2.6 is somewhat sporty as well, depends on the context I guess. Thanks for watching.
This is the best car ever made. You may disagree, if you are informed you don't.
Had a chance to buy one of these as a first car & passed on it because I thought Mercedes were unreliable. Had no idea they actually made a receivable car that would have been worth 10x’s what I paid, today.
Ahhh man please do a video on the Black Hammer
Great video and good to see someone still posting reviews of these classics! I have a one-owner 1984 first gen and its still running great! Does yours running on stock setup or lowered? The stance looks dope!
Absolutely love the stance on this car! Who makes the wheels on your car, what is the size? What size tires do you have on them? Looks fantastic.
Gosh....
Perhaps this was the original compact sports saloon from Daimler-Benz...
But it wasn't the first on the planet.
The list is endless .... But this is a very brief edited version:
Renault 8 Gordini
Alfa 105 Giulia
Triumph Dolomite Sprint
BMW 2002 Ti
Lancia Flavia (and 2000)
Lotus Cortina (any model)
Audi 80 GTE (B1)
The list is endless ....
The 190 is/was a remarkable car and remains a wonder of the latter part of the last century....
But it wasn't a first. 😮
I love the cosworth we have 2 cosworths in garage. And i have normal 190 1.8 kjet
Such a nice car, bar the silly stretched tyres.
I agree, that's how it was when we bought it. I'm planning on doing something about it at some point, maybe some better fitting wheels. But for now its certainly not getting in the way of enjoying it!
can i please havea breakdown of this wheel and tire setup??
Im guessing 17" , Amg fender spacers in the front for rubbing?
someone anyone!!!
The wheels are 17x8 and 17x9 and use 215/45 17 tires at the back and 205/45 17 at the front. They are made by Alzor. No spacers and no rubbing.
Hi,please what ET? THX Martin @@Retromod
I love this vehicle.what do they go for?
$5,000 to $10,000?
It’s for sale still can go 1,000,000 miles
Those wheels are so clean, what are they? Specs?
Those seems to be alzor 17"
Can you tell me dimension of tires please
What is the mpg on this beast ?
please replace that coolant reservoir!!!! it's look really bad in the engine bay ( and it's a cheap part!!! LOL )....I daily drive a 1993 W124 400E
What size are those wheels?
I have nostalgia for these cars because the new ones suck so much. I just don’t like the new c class. The fussiness and intrusive iPad interface, the plasticity interior elements, the econobox sounding engine notes and the sound of the doors as they close. I don’t like that Mercedes’ seats have gotten harder and harder too. So uncomfortable
Hi!
What rim size does this Mercedes have?
They are 17x8 and 17x9 I believe.
www.ecstuning.com/b-alzor-parts/17-style-803-wheels-set-of-four/803-1kt1/
@@Retromod thanks
Have 4 late models Rog.
Picture was such a clickbait so misleading
Wheels to big, damage the stand and elegance of the car.
An ugly box. Don’t see the fascination. Had many of these, they rust for fun and the head gaskets are like cream cheese.
They are great cars you must get your facts right but I respect your pinion
Opinions vary.
WTF, these rims sucks
Well IDGAF what you think, LOL. But thanks for sharing!
@@Retromod well, they are not as bad as i said, my comment sucks too