A cool thing about Bring A Trailer is that it’s been around so long, that by now, several cars will have gone through their system several times. BaT marks those cars as “Alumni”; when a BaT Alumni car goes up on the site, it has a link to the previous ad, and you can easily compare before-and-after photos and see whether the car has had improvements made or maintenance done.
Everyone knows how important a paper trail can be when looking for a useable classic car, let alone a daily driver.
Linking back to old ads also shows how a car will have changed during the previous owner’s tenure. A good example is this 1989 Mercedes-Benz 190E, which was auctioned on BaT in January 2024.
Equipped with the biggest engine you could specify on a factory 190E order, it has the 2.6-liter M103 straight six with 158 horsepower. AMG-tuned versions of the 190E could have a 3.2-liter, 230-horsepower version of the same engine, and Cosworth-developed sporting variants with the 16-valve four-cylinder boasted a 170-horsepower reading for US-market cars. Still, the six-cylinder in this car is certainly a big block when it comes to W201 engines, and it fills the engine bay nicely, from the firewall to the radiator.
As a 1989 car, the Mercedes is already a facelift version, which you can tell from the two-tone look and the beefy “Sacco” panels on the lower doors, painted in a darker red.
At the time the car was put up on BaT in 2024, the car had 77k on the clock (total mileage unknown due to the speedometer and odometer cable being out of commission for a while), a clean and unripped interior, but also accident history after a collision with a light pole likely crumpled the driver side front corner and deployed the driver airbag.
All in all, a tidy car, but crashed once already. It sold for $5,570 to the person currently selling it on BaT.
Now, in these two years the car’s appearance has changed quite a bit. It’s no longer Garnet Red, nor is it stock. The 190E now sports a breathtaking widebody kit with custom bumpers and a respray in white, complete with white, powdercoated 19-inch wheels and an enormous rear wing. If you thought the HWA EVO had an eye-catching widebody look, so does this thing. The windows are tinted and all the chrome on the car has been resprayed white, the big Mercedes front grille included. The look is a bit Koenig Specials meets Batmobile.
The headlights have been replaced with black units and the tail lights now have a smoked look. The BaT photo gallery also shows work-in-progress photos, which detail how the widebody kit was blended into the bodywork. The suspension has been lowered with Vogtland springs and the wheels are Rotiform. The car now has a Florida title [Ed note: Seems redundant to mention the Florida title – MH].
Understandably, the modifications on the car are polarizing. The comment section on BaT includes such gems as “Bruno Sacco is rolling in his grave,” but the seller also goes into more detail about the car.
He wanted a good, solid basis for his project, and this one-owner New York car with a fender bender history turned out to be just the ticket. For a while, the builder even considered keeping it stock, but couldn’t help himself; he notes that the accident history was a minor detail and the car was structurally fine, something that was crucial for his project. The original owner of the Mercedes had approved of the modifications, too.
The engine bay remains in the original factory red color, as repainting it would have made things too complicated. The interior is also in original shape, retaining the beige MB-Tex upholstery, wood trim, and airbag steering wheel.
But it’s these things that maybe make the Mercedes feel half-finished.
What would it take to make this car cool? It’s been transformed far from its original starting point and history as a lady owned, garaged car, but I feel it could go a little further.
With the body kit as extensive as it is and the color change so drastic, there are still modifications to do. In my own opinion, the interior should go, with a full roll cage installation, a deep dish steering wheel, and bucket seats instead. If this car needs to look the way it does on the outside, it might as well do so on the inside.
After nearly four decades of faithful service, the six-cylinder, completely stock powerhouse should come out of the car for a tune-up, so the engine bay could be matched to the exterior colour and the transmission swapped for a manual unit. And the wheels? Replace them with three-piece BBS or other period-correct items, preferably gold ones. In the rear of the car, they could stick out even a little further than the current ones do. Just go all in on the weird, wacky, white-out theme. It’s halfway there already.
Going back to the point where the road forked, I wouldn’t have done a single modification to the car’s 2024 look, but that’s just me, and I don’t have a 190E in my garage. The customizer does, and he did what he felt was necessary. More power to him.
[All photos: Bring A Trailer]
Not the same without cocaine
Getting wheels/tires and suspension correct can make up for a multitude of sins.
A set of 15/16″, multi-piece, super-wide BBS wheels or Borbets and a decent ride height could’ve had this looking like an actually decent 80’s tribute kind of deal. As is, the wheels are completely and totally wrong, the headlights are god-awful, and it looks like it’s on totally stock suspension.
Breathtaking, in that “I just got punched in the diaphragm” kind of way.
I mean, it looks terrible. But at least the quality is bad.
The back is giving me big time Dodge Shadow vibes.
My brother had a white Sundance. Thought the same thing.
I understand it. It isn’t for me but I understand it
It’s taken a long time and a lot of Internet for me to learn how to say “it’s not for me” and move on. Gaw bless all parties involved.
I like his plea to not say anything negative in the comments, as that might drive the value of the car down.
As my late grandmother used to say, “to each their own”.
Definitely not my thing, but I do agree that some custom upholstery or something should have been done to the interior. I also agree with the gold, BBS lace wheels being the way to go.
I think I’d have made it look like a period correct racecar from that European series where they race sedans, I forget what it’s called.
Mine would say “that’s interesting” which was her way of saying she doesn’t like it. But she would never say she doesn’t like it.
Haha, I say that a lot too.
This is certainly a car.
Place me in the “It’s not too bad without the wing” group. I would change the wheels.
I’d love to see the before and after weigh-in. This thing has got to have 300 lbs of fiberglass and epoxy.
I’m OK with the new look – except the wing.
The wing looks bad. The rest of it though, honestly, looks fine. It just needs smaller wheels and a lower ride height.
Any lower and it’ll have issues with inclined driveways and speed bumps.
I mean, this thing was clearly built for (questionable) looks to begin with; you might as well full ass it.
It’s whatever. I can’t be bothered to be mad about it. Hopefully the seller had fun with it and the next owner does too.
That’s the spirit!