Now, that’s a surefire way to render yourself the target of two fan communities at once! You just take a classical Mercedes-Benz 300E (W124) and stuff it with a BMW inline-six engine.
This project dates back to 1988 and is officially called the Hartge F1, although there is no one stopping you from calling it ‘BMcedes’ or the like. The Mercedes M3 engine with its 180 hp (134 kW) was swapped out for the much stronger BMW M88 unit with its 330 hp (246 kW) and 3.6 liters of displacement. The manual transmission stems from the E24 BMW 6 Series.
Back in the time, the tuner invested 200,000 DM (Deutsche Marks, the pre-Euro currency used in Germany) into the swap. To put things into perspective, a brand-new W124 Mercedes cost under 50,000 DM at the time. The result was worth it, though: the saloon hits its maximum torque of 350 Nm (258 lb-ft) at 4,500 RPM, sprints 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) in barely more than six seconds, and maxes out at 300 km/h (186 mph).
