Today, 130 horsepower is completely average in a compact car, and electric cars have ushered in the age of brutal acceleration models, just think of the 435 horsepower MG4 XPower.

35-year-old Mercedes: life is beautiful even with 136 horsepower 1

There are few cars as timeless as the Mercedes-Benz W201.


Yet on the German autobahn, a 35-year-old Mercedes-Benz somehow seems to be more than sufficient for sublime progress even with 132 horsepower. Although this is not the top of the range, the W201 Code 190 Mercedes with a 2.3-liter engine was more of a pleasant middle ground for the type manufactured between 1982 and 1993.

Based on the video, it runs smoothly and is surprisingly stable even at high speeds, but at the time, Mercedes was winking at over-engineering instead of planned obsolescence. This car was developed by Mercedes with an amazing mental and financial investment. 2.3 billion marks were spent on it, which would be HUF 447 billion even without accounting for inflation.

35-year-old Mercedes: life is beautiful even with 136 horsepower 2

They really thought about this at Mercedes, it is no coincidence that the 190 is a popular hobby car

The aspirated diesels were four- or five-cylinder, the two-liter 190D had 72-75 horsepower, the 2.5-liter aspirated diesel produced 90 or 94 horsepower. It also existed as a five-cylinder turbodiesel with 122 or 126 horsepower with an automatic transmission.

35-year-old Mercedes: life is beautiful even with 136 horsepower 3

The real top collector’s item, the 190 E 2.5-16 EVO II, the highest output of the four-cylinder engine was 235 horsepower at 7,200 crankshaft revolutions. The very fast engine delivered its maximum torque of 235 newton meters between 5,000 and 6,000 rpm.

One of the delights of the petrol range is the 190E 2.6, which has a 2597cc M103 straight-six engine with 160-166 horsepower, acceleration to 100 km/h in 8.2 seconds and a top speed of 215 km/h. The top model was sold only from 1992, the straight-six 190E 3.2 AMG had 234 horsepower.