One to Buy: ex-AMG 1994 Mercedes-Benz W202 C-class DTM Class 1
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In 1993, the first year that the DTM had opened itself up to the FIA’s Class 1 Touring Car regulations, Nicola Larini emerged as champion driving for the debutant Alfa Romeo team. However, the following season would see Mercedes-Benz re-emerge as the DTM’s dominant force with a brand new challenger based on the recently introduced W202 C-class.
Mercedes’ supplied four examples of the new Class 1 C-class to AMG (for Roland Asch, Bernd Schneider, Klaus Ludwig and Ellen Lohr) in addition to another pair that went to Zakspeed (for Kurt Thiim and Jorg van Ommen).
Although Alfa Romeo’s went on to win eleven of the 1994 season’s 20 races compared to Mercedes’ nine, it was AMG driver Klaus Ludwig that ultimately won the title by a healthy margin from Zakspeed’s Jorg van Ommen. Alfa Romeo’s Nicola Larini and Alessandro Nannini placed third and fourth in the final standings followed by Zakspeed’s Kurt Thiim and AMG’s Roland Asch.
Currently on offer at the Jan B. Lühn showroom in Germany, 10km from Münster / Westfalen, is the Class 1 W202 driven by AMG’s Roland Asch to sixth in the 1994 DTM championship: chassis RS 94 211.
Unlike the other AMG entries of 1994 which ran in a silver colour scheme with D2 backing, chassis RS 94 211 was configured in a special reflex paint that changed colour in different lights. Instead of D2, it ran with backing from Sonax car care products and Tabac aftershave.
On his way to sixth in the final standings, Asch most notably bagged a brace of second place finishes at the Zolder season opener which he followed up with more seconds at Diepholz and Berlin and a third place finish at the Nurburgring.
For 1995, chassis RS 94 211 was loaned to the Persson Motorsport squad who ran Bernd Mayländer. Now in a conventional blue and green Point S livery, the car recorded five top ten finishes in the shortened 14 round series.
More recently, since acquisition by the current owner in 2013, chassis RS 94 211 has been returned to its 1994 configuration and mechnically overhauled.
