SUV Oddity: The Mercedes 190E 'Crossover'

Yes, it is fully as weird as it sounds...

If you thought that the Mini Paceman thingummy was a bit of an abomination, then odds are you are not going to like this Mercedes.

The Russian owner of this car obviously liked the idea of the crossover SUV so much that they decided to turn their Mercedes 190E into one.

The result has been dubbed the '90E' (see what they did there?) and the recipe appears to be a simple one.

Take one Mercedes 190E and chop the rear end off. Next you raise the ride height and fit some chunky alloys (possibly from a W124 E-class), before bunging on a pair of rear lights from a 1990s S-class

Finally, garnish with bull bars made from curiously thick tubing, and finish the whole lot in a paint job that manages to be matt and shiny at the same time (although we suppose that the car could have had more than one paint job over time - but that would be boring), et voila.

The result may not be to all tastes, but there is a curious appeal to it - and more than a whiff of VW Golf Country (see right). There's only one problem: as far as we're aware, the Mercedes 190E was never made in four-wheel drive...