Chassis 001 went straight to a museum<\/p>\n
Fittingly, the very first car is not going to be used as daily transport. HWA EVO 001, finished in 199 Blue-Black Metallic in tribute to the original, has been delivered to the Nationales Automuseum The Loh Collection, a museum holding over 160 historic cars spanning 1885 to the present, where it sits alongside genuine 190E 2.5-16 Evo II examples. Chassis 002, the first true customer car, went to Willibald Dorflinger, principal shareholder of HWA AG, in July 2026.<\/p>\n
Old shape, thoroughly modern underneath<\/p>\n
Each EVO is built around an original W201 bodyshell, then comprehensively re-engineered and re-clothed in carbon fibre. Power comes from a 3.0-litre turbocharged V6 producing 444 hp and 550 Nm, with an upgrade available taking it to 493 hp. Crucially it drives the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox, the engine sits behind the front axle for 50\/50 weight distribution, and the whole thing weighs around 1,350 kg. Braking is handled by 380 mm front and 360 mm rear discs.<\/p>\n
Two years from study to delivery<\/p>\n
HWA announced the project in December 2023 and has taken a little over two years to reach customer deliveries, with prototype PT01 completing extensive testing and validation along the way. “Delivering the HWA EVO marks a milestone that the entire team looks back on with great pride. In just over two years, we have turned an initial design study into a fully developed high-performance vehicle,” said HWA AG CEO Martin Marx.<\/p>\n
There is a racing version too<\/p>\n
Alongside the road car, HWA has developed the EVO.R, which competed in the ADAC RAVENOL 24 Hours of the Nurburgring in 2026 and will be offered as a customer race car. Production of the road-going EVO is capped at 100 bespoke chassis worldwide, with prices starting at around 714,000 euro.<\/p>\n
AutoNext Take<\/p>\n
Everything about this specification reads like a deliberate rebuke to the modern performance car. A 1,350 kg kerb weight, a manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive and 50\/50 balance, wrapped in the most gloriously excessive silhouette of the 1980s, is about as far from a two-tonne electric super-SUV as you can get. That HWA has the DTM and AMG pedigree to back it up makes it more credible still.<\/p>\n
The price is enormous, and 100 cars means almost nobody will see one. But this is part of a wider movement we keep applauding, from the reborn Jensen Interceptor<\/a> to Wiesmann’s screen-free comeback<\/a>: small firms building analogue driver’s cars for people who miss them. Delivering chassis 001 to a museum is a nice touch, though we would rather see the other 99 used hard.<\/p>\n