► 500E or 300E could be on the way
► And even a wagon if you ask nicely
► First up is 100 units of the EVO
HWA has tapped into a rich vein of car culture with its EVO restomod – and it has no plans to stop. Speaking to CAR at the Nürburgring 24-hour race, CTO Gordian von Schoening revealed there would be further products after the EVO – with several cars in AMG’s rich history already being looked at.
At just over €0.7 million, the EVO isn’t cheap, but after 100 models HWA will be keen to improve on its ROI: ‘I can say that the development cost, and the investment into such a program is quite high,’ von Schoeningsaid. ‘And it wouldn’t really return if we would just stick to one product.’
The EVO project has involved R&D and exists on a scale not usually seen in most restomod projects, with HWA already putting the EVO through crash testing. Next year it’ll race in the N24 race, too.
‘Our idea is to not build more than 100 [EVO] cars, because that’s a limitation, but there will be other products, let’s say, in the future,’ told CAR. ‘I think there is also other very significant and logical cars in the pipeline.’
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So, what cars could those be? HWA seems to have hit a sweet spot with AMG’s modern-timer or modern classic era, and it won’t be looking too far for its next vehicle. CAR understands that the next vehicle from HWA could be the larger brother of the 190E: that points to either the W124 in 500E or 300E Hammer form.
Both come from the drawing board of Bruno Sacco, and HWA already has experience in updating his beefed-up, AMG-ified lines for 2025. Both cars also carry that mythos and prestige of 80s–90s Affalterbach creations. Whichever car they chose, it’ll be logical step, and play into HWA’s mission to drag AMG’s most iconic cars into 2025.
HWA is hell-bent on making holy grails for petrolheads – so I naturally asked about a fast wagon, too. It’s not out of the question: ‘We have actually clients asking us to actually go from this car already into a wagon,’ von Schoening told me. ‘So why not? I’m happy to convert a car, if somebody thinks that would be suitable for them.’
HWA believes it’ll be able to make a car a week, which means the EVO run will be finished by 2027. Expect the next model to appear soon after.
HWA is a German engineering and racing-specialist firm with strong ties to AMG and the motorsport wing of Mercedes-Benz.
The company name comes from the initials of its founder, Hans-Werner Aufrecht, who started HWA in Affalterbach, Germany, as a managing team for Mercedes’ motorsport interests in 1999. After selling AMG to Mercedes, HWA was created.
We’ll update this story when we know more.
Curtis Moldrich is CAR magazine’s Digital Editor and has worked for the brand for the past five years. He’s responsible for online strategy, including CAR’s website, social media channels such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, and helps on wider platform strategy as CAR magazine branches out on to Apple News+ and more.
By Curtis Moldrich
CAR's Digital Editor, F1 and sim-racing enthusiast. Partial to clever tech and sports bikes
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