Hypercars, Sledgehammer AMGs & Mercedes Race Cars: Who Are HWA?

There’s a secretive company in Germany that’s about to get rather a lot of attention. It’s called HWA, and in just a few days’ time will show the world its first restomod, a £700k stunner based on the Mercedes 190E Evo II. Who? How much? Fret not, because HWA’s pedigree means its new ‘EVO’ will be worth every penny. You see, founder Hans Werner Aufrecht (hence HWA) was originally the A in AMG, and after selling up to Mercedes in the late ‘90s, set up his motorsport business and has never looked back. HWA subsequently ran Mercedes’ DTM efforts and is the most successful team in series history. Bar Formula One, HWA has pretty much had a hand in every other Mercedes race car too, including the GT3 versions of the SLS and AMG GT. HWA also ran the Mercedes Formula E factory team, winning the driver and manufacturer titles in 2020/’21 and ‘21/’22. Plus, it built the rare-groove CLK DTM road car, and the SL65 Black Series. Then there’s naturally aspirated V12 for the Pagani Huayra R, that’s HWA’s own, as is all the engineering work for the recent relaunches of the Apollo and De Tomaso brands. On and on the list goes. Over to Top Gear’s Head of Car Testing, Ollie Marriage, to make sense of just how special HWA really is… Subscribe to Top Gear for more videos: WATCH MORE TOP GEAR: First Looks:   First Drives: American Tuned ft. Rob Dahm: LISTEN to the Top Gear Magazine Podcast: Sign up for our newsletter: Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:43 History 03:09 Engines 05:41 Mercedes AMG GT 06:24 Apollo Intensa Emozione MORE ABOUT TOP GEAR: Welcome to the official home of Top Gear on YouTube. Here you’ll find all the best clips from your favourite episodes, whether that’s Ken Block drifting London in the Hoonicorn, Chris Harris in the latest Porsche 911 GT3 or classic Top Gear clips from Clarkson, Hammond and May. You’ll also find the latest performance car reviews from the crew, our brand new series American Tuned with Rob Dahm and the fastest power laps from our in house performance benchmark: The Stig. This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios. Service & Feedback