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| Owners' Car Showcase |
Welcome to the Showcase of Members' Cars!
These cars are not for sale. Rather, the showcase represents a place where any owner of a Sterling, Sebring, Cimbria (Nova, Erueka, Eagle, etc.)
can very easily display their car -- whether it is a raw project, a daily driver, or a perfect show car.
Additionally, once you add your car to the showcase, you can easily create a "Builder's Journal" for your project including text, photos, video or whatever information you want to share about your car.
Whether you have a finished car or a project, please take the time to post your car and have it be counted in the ongoing saga.
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Sterling #404 -- W. Daugherty -- Central Pa (USA)
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Time Left: 296m, 6d
Ad ID Number: 9 Views: 222
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| Car Specifications |
| Engine Type (in general): |
| rotary engine |
| Engine Details (Specific): |
| '91 13b Rotary, aftermarket carb. |
| Type of Chassis: |
| IRS Beetle (1969 Bug or newer) |
| Brake Configuration: |
| aftermarket discs -- front and rear |
| Top-lifting Mechanism: |
| hydraulic pump and cylinders |
| Condition of the Car: |
| runs, but not roadworthy yet |
| Model: |
| Sterling - original (includes most) |
| Dash Style: |
| Sterling -- straight style |
| Transaxle: |
| IRS VW Bug -- stock |
| Canopy Style/Modifications: |
| stock canopy / solid roof |
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| Additional Photos |
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Details
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Introducing "The Burgundy" Sterling, the fourth Sterling I've been lucky enough to own.
This one came from California, from Ebay (kind of), from a wonderfully friendly little guy with a thick Spanish accent who said almost cried when he saw, "My baby being taken away on a truck!" (I have never felt so guilty buying a car from everyone before or since. I even offered to let him out of the deal. But with a melancholy tone he said, "My wife and me just had a little baby...and I need the money...and now my wife ees to fat to ride in it anyway." I didn't ask a follow-up.
Under his ownership, he had achieved two commendable goals: 1) he had done some mild custom body work on it that is really quite nice and 2) he worked with the actual "Racing Beat" garage in California (known for their expertice in Mazda racing engines) for their help in retrofitting a tweaked RX7 rotary engine into the car. As such, although I don't agree with some of the trim work on the car, he ended up with a very nicely running Sterling.
With regard to the body work, he deepened both the upper and lower side scoops without making them look bulky or out of place, and he very artistically fared in some tail lights out of a mid '80s Camaro in a way that made them look like they were made from scratch for a Sterling. Up front he added pop-up headlights (which I wish he would have kept as open bay, but oh well), and he also added what we'll refer to as "hood accents" which amounted to cutting some trapezoid shapes into the hood, over the radiator, and screening them in with mesh that I think I've seen used on speaker cabinets. Hmmm. Okay...not everything is exactly how I would've done it.
But this car came at a critical time for me insofar as I'd been working on a "project" Sterling for years and years, and I had recently come to the realization that it was still probably years away from being done, and frankly, I just really desperately wanted a Sterling that I could actually DRIVE.
So I had been cruising Ebay for months looking for a Sterling that was essentially fully running and that also had some sort of unique features that "spoke to me" in particular. Along came "the burgundy Sterling" (which has nice assonance from a poetic standpoint)...and I bid on it. And I lost.  I think I had estimated its actual value somewhere around $5,000 and had emotionally made my last bid at the last second at about $5,500. But the high bid ended up poking way up to about $6,800 -- happy news for the seller, but sad news for me.
But I wrote to him afterwards just to thank him for his previous correspondence and for taking the time to answer questions thoughtfully rather than just grunting answers. And I also mentioned that, if the buyer backed out, he should hold onto my email address and drop me a message.
A few weeks later, Joel wrote to me and said the buyer was being shady/evasive and had stopped communicating with him. (He said it was a broker who wanted to just resell it on an exotic car lot. Yipes.) He was frustrated, but he said he just wanted his project to go to someone who cared about it and would continue to improve it. So he accepted my original offer, and two weeks later I had a beautiful burgundy Sterling in the hanger.
Getting back to the car itself: The engine was from a fuel injected Mazda RX7 that Joel thought might have been from 1991 (a wrecked car of one of his friends). In an effort to simplify the installation, Joel decided to do away withe the computer and the injectors and instead bought a nice after market "carb conversion" package from Racing Beat that included a new intake, bad-ass Holley carb, and various little adapters and plugs to make it all work. He bought an after market racing MSD ignition and a transaxle adapter plate from Kennedy Engineering. Dropped the floorboards. Plumbed the radiator (and oil radiators, which are very important to a rotary engine).
In total, he laid all of the groundwork for a very nice Sterling.
I wouldn't say it's a daily driver, though. Among other things, we had trouble with the canopy hydraulics and part of the engine wiring, which I'll cover in more detail in a forum or a Journal entry. The car runs, but it runs temperamentally like and old muscle car tuned for racing. And Joel wasn't lying: He was a little guy, and the pedal positions and the thickness of the center console make it virtually impossible for me to drive as it sits right now. But all of these things can be fixed.
Things that I like:
- tail lights
- general body detailing
- color
- strong, modern engine
- all basic systems are generally functioning
- not far off from being a daily driver
Things that I don't like:
- airflow (and hood styling) at the radiator
- pedal positioning
- pop-up headlights (poor fiberglass work in that area)
- quality of the entire wiring harness
- dash styling (a PADDED VINYL dash? Really?)
- and, okay...What's with the flames and all of the windowstickers!?! I mean, c'mon now. Flames!? On the seats and dash!? I am of the opinion that a Sterling is already eye-catching enough as it is and that you probably don't need to use flames or decals to draw additional attention to the car. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I just have flame envy.
Anyway, that introduces "The Burgundy Sterling," CCC #404.
(There'll be more details and updates on it in the Journal section as I can find the time to enter stuff.)
--W.Daughery
aka Farfegnubbin
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