Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 | The Brave Pill
Who wants to boldly go where Clarkson once did?
Brave Pill was created around the mission of venturing the the most far-flung and daring parts of the automotive world - or, at least, the PH Classifieds - in search of high-risk adventure. Like Indiana Jones, only with expensive, elderly cars. But this week's selection is closer to home, and one that requires tweaking the corporate pronoun from "we" to "me" earlier than usual. Because when it comes to 16-valve versions of the Mercedes 190E I've been there, done that and bought a series of really expensive T-shirts.
You can read about the recent adventures of my own 2.5-16 in the PH Fleet stories that cover its recommissioning after a long lay-up, subsequent mechanical meltdown and eventual return to order. (There are more updates approaching, too.) My personal odyssey started with a decent (but neglected) car, took two years and cost more than seven grand. Here's an earlier 2.3-16 which needs a fair bit more done to it. From the modest height of my expertise I can tell any doubters that getting it into fettle is going to require considerable amounts of time, expertise and - most of all - cash.
The 190E 16V was one of those cars that qualified as a spectacularly successful failure. It was originally created to go rallying, with the idea being to use a Cosworth-developed 16-valve cylinder head to give some serious pep to the regular M102 2.0-litre engine of the Baby Benz, raising output from 136hp to 185hp. The arrival of the dominant AWD Audi Quattro and then Group B regs did for that plan, but not before work on a road-going version was too advanced to be stopped.
The 2.3-16 made its debut when Mercedes built 20 identical cars for a one-off race to celebrate the opening of the new Nurburgring GP Circuit in 1985. It was almost certainly the most distinguished grid of all time, one that featured no fewer than nine existing Formula 1 world champions and two future ones - with Ayton Senna emerging victorious. Racing was clearly the future, with Mercedes developing the car for the then-new DTM Championship, where its long-running battle with the E30 BMW M3 and Sierra RS would eventually spawn both the brawnier 2.5-litre engine in 1988 and then the more extreme Evo and Evo 2 homologation versions.
Motorsport glory - and the 16V's good looks - propelled it to considerable sales success. Mercedes sold 19,400 of the 2.3-16 globally, followed by 5750 of the 'regular' 2.5-litre version. And that's despite a price tag that put it well above the obvious alternatives. In 1986 an unoptioned 2.3-16 was £21,940 in the UK at the same time an E30 BMW 325i Sport was £14,095 and the newly launched Ford Sierra RS was £15,950.
But by the late 1990s the 16-valvers had already acquired a reputation for being markedly less reliable than the almost unburstable standard 190E, and values had reached a low plateau they sat on for more than a decade. It's not long since cars as shabby as our Pill would most likely have been broken up. After buying mine in 2012 I soon realised it was easier to find less common components from people scrapping cars than official channels. I bought a set of wheels and a throttle body from a bloke who had two 'parts cars' outside his house, both serving as donors to keep an equally scruffy running example alive. Rare bits can be both ferociously expensive and hard to track down and a surprising amount of stuff is different from the regular 190E.
Our Pill's valuation is based in part on its interesting backstory, with the vendor saying it was an original UK press demonstrator. That was doubtless a hard life - 1980s road testers didn't spare the whip when it came to gathering performance numbers - but after the rat-pack had finished beating on it it was passed onto a youthful Jeremy Clarkson who ran it as a long-termer for six months. That explains why almost every available options box was ticked when it was first ordered, including the stylish houndstooth trim, heated seats, power sunroof and four electric windows. The presence of a recirculation switch on the dashboard also suggests the very rare option of factory aircon.
It needs plenty of work, with the seller being honest about the scale of the challenge that the next owner faces. The gold-ish smoke silver paint has faded, and although it doesn't look too bad from most angles the advert admits it probably requires a full respray. It is also suffering from some rust - the vendor reporting a rust patch at the bottom of the rear screen and more on the slam panel and offside rear wheelarch. The MOT history adds a few more areas for careful consideration with multiple corrosion advisories back in 2016 when the car was put through its first test since 2006. From personal experience I can say that even a smart-looking 190E can be hiding expensive quantities of grot. And this is not a smart-looking 190E.
The official record also suggests that what was intended to be a recommissioning four years ago never went anywhere; the car didn't get another MOT test until this year. It failed in May with some of the familiar afflictions of the long-neglected: weepy, non-operative power steering, insufficient brakes and a cracked windscreen. Other issues revealed by the pictures include scuffed, worn and damaged trim, peeling leather on steering wheel and gear shifter, corroded alloys and a hole in the rear wing where what would almost certainly have been an expensive Hirschmann electric aerial once went. It's also missing the '2.3-16' badge from the right side of the boot lid. The vast, ugly wing indicator repeaters are non-standard too.
But to look on the bright side, our Pill doesn't seem to be hiding anything. As 16 Valve values have risen so some unscrupulous sellers have realised that polish costs less than expensive remedial work, there are lots of cars out there that look considerably better above the waterline than they do below it. The price of our Pill seems a little keen for anyone who isn't drawn by the tangential Clarkson connection, you could easily spend the difference between it and a really good one on a comprehensive restoration. Yet as even the brawniest Mercs head towards a downsized future - the new '63' engine is set to be four-cylinder - so interest in the hottest 'Baby Benz' may well rise further. I've got my fingers crossed on that one.
See the original advert here
But if you can take it on, a very worthwhile project.
A mate has just bought a 2.5 16 from Romania. It's being restored out there to keep costs down. It's being completely stripped Inc interior, engine/gearbox, windows out respray ect, apparently its completely rot free.
Disagree with the 2.5-16 being the slower of the 2 though
Disagree with the 2.5-16 being the slower of the 2 though
This one is unfortunately on life support and needs major surgery to bring it back...it’s about 10k too expensive. You can get one in decent nick for about for about 20k - so 13k for a dog is a tad unrealistic.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff