From a private entry that failed to finish in 1985 to the 1992 DTM championship with Klaus Ludwig — ten years of the W201 against BMW, Ford, and Audi in the fastest touring car series in the world.
The Deutsche Produktion Meisterschaft launches at Zolder in March — a Group A championship with no engine classes, run on a handicap system that lets BMW 635s, Volvo 240 Turbos and Ford Sierra XR4Tis share a grid. Mercedes observes. The 190E 2.3-16 is in production, but homologation isn't complete in time for the opening round. The championship goes to the Volvo. Stuttgart takes notes.
The DPM adds the word "International" to its name and draws its first genuine star drivers — Gerhard Berger, Roberto Ravaglia, Klaus Ludwig. Frenchman Leopold Gallina becomes the first to enter a 190E 2.3-16, engine prepared by Hartmann Motorsport. Three starts. Zero finishes. The car shows speed in patches and reliability nowhere. Dany Snobeck's team in France has already spent a full season developing the 2.3-16 in the French Production Championship and proves the car has potential. Stuttgart starts paying closer attention.
The championship rebrands as the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft and the grid expands. Team Marko (Dr. Helmut Marko) enters two 190E 2.3-16s with AMG engine prep, driven by Franz Klammer and Volker Weidler. Scuderia Kassel adds more cars. Early races are plagued by engine failures, but by mid-season the Mercedes is the car to beat in terms of outright pace. Rover's Kurt Thiim wins the title, but Weidler finishes second — remarkable for a car in its first full season of factory-backed development. Mercedes Benz personnel are spotted in the paddock. A works programme is forming.
The handicap regulations buckle under turbo power — Ford Sierra Cosworths run with 370 kg of ballast and still win. Naturally aspirated cars, including the 190E's 260 bhp, can't respond. BMW introduces the M3, purpose-built for the DTM unlike the Mercedes which remains a road car in racing trim. Regulators respond by replacing penalty weight with intake restrictors. Mercedes uses the season to prepare a full factory structure, assembling the ST Technik division and laying groundwork for the works programme that arrives in 1988.
Four manufacturers run works teams: BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Opel. Mercedes fields 14 cars across five teams — AMG, Snobeck, Marko, IPS and BMK. AMG becomes an official Mercedes partner. Development is split: Snobeck handles chassis and suspension at Magny-Cours; AMG takes over engine preparation from Untertürkheim. Test driver Roland Asch — a privateer who bought his own car and secured a factory deal three weeks before round one — finishes second in the championship using suspension settings developed from his own 2.5-16 testing. AMG drivers Kurt Thiim and Johnny Cecotto bring the first wins. Mercedes wins six races. The season is also a learning year: Stuttgart sees that the current 2.3-16 cannot win the title. Development of the 2.5-16 Evolution models begins.
Klaus Ludwig joins AMG from Ford on a Boss/König-Pilsener deal, displacing Roland Asch to MS-Racing with Manuel Reuter. In March the 190E 2.5-16 Evolution I is presented at Geneva — short-stroke 2.5-litre, wider arches, deeper front splitter, 18-inch wheels in race trim (road car runs 16-inch). All 502 examples are produced within months. The Evo I makes its race debut at Mainz-Finthen on 14 May. Roland Asch wins the race first time out. Testing had already demolished lap records across the calendar. Despite Mercedes's pace, the season lacks a consistent title contender. Kurt Thiim finishes fourth in the championship. By August, Stuttgart begins development of the Evolution II.
Turbos are banned. Ford exits. Audi enters with the V8 quattro — 3.6-litre, four-wheel drive, and a handicap system that BMW and Mercedes argue is woefully inadequate for AWD. BMW counters with its own M3 Evolution. Mercedes holds back the Evo II deliberately: at season start, all cars run the Evo I. The Evo II debuts at the Nordschleife mid-season to immediate drama — best qualifying time, leading the race, then mechanical failures for both Ludwig and Thiim. As the season progresses all three teams convert. Power climbs from 333 bhp to 360 bhp through the year as teams experiment with F1-grade fuels. On 1 October, AMG becomes a fully owned Mercedes-Benz subsidiary. Despite the pace, Audi wins the championship.
The DTM reaches its commercial peak: 652,000 trackside spectators across 11 rounds, 21.6 million German TV viewers per race and 100 million internationally. Mercedes runs four works teams — MS-Racing, Snobeck, AMG and new entrant Zakspeed — with power reaching 340 bhp early and 360 bhp by season end. The BMW-Mercedes battles are fierce, with margins tight enough that a single mechanical failure ends a title bid. Ludwig finishes second to Audi again. The rules debates between manufacturers over Audi's AWD advantage continue through winter.
Three Mercedes works teams, eight cars. Audi collapses mid-season and withdraws, leaving BMW and Mercedes to fight alone. Mercedes arrives with power steering, power-assisted brakes, and a new six-speed sequential gearbox that doesn't require the clutch to shift up. Engines produce 373 bhp at 9,500 rpm but require a full overhaul every 600 km at roughly €12,000 per rebuild. Tyre choice proves decisive race by race. Ludwig is consistent where rivals are not. He wins the DTM title — the 190E's only championship. Mercedes celebrates. Stuttgart also knows this is the car's final year at the top: Class 1 regulations replace the homologation rules in 1993.
The new Class 1 regulations require no homologation — only that the road car the racer is based on exists in 25,000 examples. BMW disagrees with the direction and exits. Opel and Audi also don't appear. Only Alfa Romeo (the purpose-built 155 V6 Ti with 4WD and 420 bhp to 11,500 rpm) and Mercedes (a modified Evo II under Class 1 rules) remain as genuine works cars. Mercedes fields six cars across AMG and Zakspeed, supported by a DTM Junior team and a handful of privateers. Nicola Larini wins the championship for Alfa convincingly. The 190E finishes its competitive life on the grid.
Mercedes debuts the purpose-built C-Class DTM car. The Evo II era is over at factory level. The DTM Junior Team and a handful of privateers keep the 190E on the starting grid for one final season — a coda rather than a campaign. The chassis that turned a production saloon into a DTM champion exits on its own terms.