The car chosen is a 1990, 2.6 manual Mercedes 190E
As we got it, it was a nice unmolested example, lots of recent work done, nice mushroom leather interior. And all the usual Mercedes luxuries. Bodywork a little tatty but not too bad.
The 2.6 190 is quite high performance for a luxury saloon, utilising the fantastic bullet proof M103 6 cylinder 166bhp engine, this is a standard mercedes engine used in several ranges, parts are easy to find and cheap. With a 0-60 time of 7.8s and a top speed of 133mph its a nice place to start from. Although for track use its a little soft the stock suspension is actually rather good. Plus minor changes can make major differences for track use. Although not actually particularly heavy there is a lot of weight that can be removed from these cars. Interior is high quality (and therefore heavy), and things like electric windows and sunroof all add weight (that can be removed). By far the majority of these cars were automatics, and good automatics. The manual is obviously more suited for track use but very hard to find.
The solid reliable engine, well balanced handling, very good standard brakes (all the 2.6 models have uprated brakes), availability of parts, ease of working on them and options for removing weight made this an ideal choice.
