Autoblog and Yahoo may earn commission from links in this article.The Most Significant Mercedes of the '80s?Mercedes-Benz made a lot of great cars in the '80s. The W124 has that legendary build quality and durability, the W126 was a luxurious bank vault on wheels, and the SL was a great grand tourer. Let's not forget that the company was also building the G-Class by that decade, too.Those are all cars that are still worth having today, and you can bet they will still run like clockwork, provided the right care and maintenance. But perhaps the most important one to come out of that era was the W201. Better known as the 190, 190E, or 190D, it wasn't a cheap Mercedes; it was a small Mercedes. That meant it was built and engineered like an S-Class, but in a smaller body. That helped Mercedes enter a new market, and it's still a beloved model to this day.The 190E to Rule Them AllThere are many wonderful versions of the 190 available, from the near-indestructible diesels to the smooth six-cylinder 2.6. Of course, there's the 2.3-16 and later 2.5-16 that constantly gave the E30 M3 headaches in racing. One could even say the 2.3-16 helped Ayrton Senna boost up his stock. But the ultimate iteration of the compact executive is the 2.5-16 Evo II. It was a homologation special of which just 502 were made.AdvertisementAdvertisementIt was a hugely successful car on the track, and the road-going version was pretty wild for its era. The ground-hugging bodywork meant you won't mistake it for a black 190D with about a million miles, and the whopping wing at the back makes sure everyone knows this is no ordinary 190E.Rarely for SaleAs mentioned, just 502 of these cars were made, so you're not likely to find one on a regular basis. And because of its rarity, these things do not come cheap when they do come up for sale. While a clean 190E 2.6 will set you back around $10,000, a 2.5-16 Evo II is worth at least 20 times more.So what we have here is one of the 502 cars. Mind you, it's not being sold in the U.S., but rather is up for sale over in the Netherlands. More specifically, it's number 365 of 502, and we'd love to read about its backstory. It currently has 97,753 kilometers, so that's roughly 60,740 miles on the clock. It's been serviced recently and passed its inspection. It's only seen regular servicing over the years, although we don't know if anything major has been replaced. The good news is, all of its stamps in the service booklet are present.The price? It's currently being sold by Autobedrijf van der Aa for a staggering €529,999. Convert that to U.S. dollars, and you're looking at around $614,600 at current exchange rates.Autobedrijf van der AaAutobedrijf van der AaView the 9 images of this gallery on the original articleAdvertisementAdvertisementThis story was originally published by Autoblog on Sep 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Autoblog as a Preferred Source by clicking here.