Ok... brief history on the car as I recall it. The "search" started back in the spring of 2003 when I wasn't really actively looking for a project. I had never dealt with VW's before, never mind a kit. But I wanted "something" to drive, not necessarily work on. I had a subscription to a very small rag called something like "Kit World" which was basically a few pages of photocopied ads of kits for sale. Now, remember, the interwebs were just getting footing so forums and on-line advertisement was just underway.
Anyway, there wasn't much interesting, mostly MG and Gazelle kits, but one ad caught my eye just because it was placed so poorly. Just a shot of the front quarter panel showing the panel and the top of the wheel, in black and white, with "Sterling kit, original owner $3500". Now.. I was sort of familiar with Sterling from the Kenny Youngblood article but not much else. A quick web search at that time only revealed Sterling Central in it's infancy with a couple of owners listed as reference. Hmmm...
With the blessings of my wife (she does indulge me far too often), I called the number listed and yes, it was still available. In Michigan. Lansing, Michigan. I'm just outside of Philadelphia. Hmmm....
Ok, I'm game. It was one of those "ran when parked" deals, and the sucker I am, decided to play fetch and drive to Lansing one Friday, borrowing a co-worker's flatbed trailer. I had neither trailered something that far nor had driven anywhere that far before - and GPS's weren't common. Armed with Mapquest directions (help me!), a road atlas and a CB, off I went on the 13 hour one-way drive.
Actually, it wasn't all that bad. A little boring, but whatever. I was going to get a CAR! The owner was off a secondary road outside of town (very outside) and blew right past his driveway - twice. Once arrived we took the trailer off and stowed it behind his house out of sight. Apparently the neighborhood wasn't a very good one despite the distances between the homes. I found out better when I got to my hotel a few miles away.. with bars on the windows and doors... and a really crusty room. I can't recall if I slept any that night or not. Anyway... I had never seen a Sterling in person before that arrival day. My first impressions were 'Cool!' and 'Geez that's little'... then looking inside with the canopy up 'I'll never get my feet on the pedals'. And I couldn't. I usually wear cowboy style steel toe work boots and with an un-dropped pan it was virtually impossible for me to fit in the car. Uh-oh.
The owner, Larry, had bought the kit new in '73 and acquired a rolled VW for a donor. He had put the whole thing together over a course of a year or so in between his travels (forgot what he did, but I do remember he was an engineer of some sort). He had pulled the engine, rebuilt it with a Claudes Buggies Big Bore kit and stainless valves and threw a set of 36 Weber DCNF's on top. He said that he did try starting it but the starter was hanging, so he would go to the store to get another that evening, and switch it out next day.
So.. next day rolls around, head to the house and find him laying under the car, swapping the starter. His backstory was after he had built the car, business found him globetrotting and rarely home. When he was he would start and drive the car around the block, but essentially it had sat for 30 years. Which meant everything rubber needed to be changed. Starter in, some gas poured down the carbs and the thing fired up. Not even a hesitation, so I had a good feeling from that. It didn't run well, of course, but it did run. Larry drove it onto the trailer and we snugged it down for the long trip back. Cash traded, paperwork swapped and off I went.
On the way home I had the CB on for company as I had left his place late - maybe 12 or 1 in the afternoon - and I'd be arriving at least that late in the evening. And.. it was raining. Hard. Almost the entire trip. Sterlings don't leak, right? Anyway, I had found the 'trucker chatter' channel on the radio and was relying on them for road updates and actually chatted back and forth quite a bit. As I would pass one or one would come up behind I would catch "Did you see that on the trailer?" come across, some with good comments, some with bad. But everyone of them was watching for me across Ohio and into PA ('single wheel with a flatbed coming your way!').
Got home I don't remember when, fell into bed and that was that. Next day went out to unhook and unload. My neighbor came over, completely fascinated, and he helped lift the roof (hydraulics weren't working, of course) and found about 2" of water in the car. Fortunately, the seats were the fiberglass shells and I wanted to drop the pans anyway for the footroom, so out came the drill and a 1/2" bit. Orange water poured from the car as we pushed it off the trailer (orange, because Larry had glued orange shag carpet to the rear bulkhead. And had shag on the floor...).
The car a few weeks after I purchased it. Larry had bought Empi 5 spokes to put on the car and at that point didn't really like the look. Little did I know they were original Empi split rims, and worth quite a bit of coin. Regardless, the first thing I did was change the wheels and put fresh sneakers on, and listed the Empi's on Samba for what I thought was a good price. They went to Europe.. and I probably could have tripled my asking price and still would have sold them.
Leaps and bounds after this; worked on the drop pans, tried different seats, and molded in the hip scoops as I was noticing that the oil temperatures would climb a little faster than I thought they should. I had put all new tie rods ends on, steering damper, swing axle boots (a '66 pan with b/j front and swing rear), camber compensator, rebuilt the carbs (my first try.. and fell in love with the simplicity of the Webers) and generally tried to tidy up the car.
As I got more into customizing the car I thought a spoiler would look good on the back as some of the current members are finding out. Of course, it couldn't be simple, and found that Porsche had used coolers in their whale-tails for both oil cooling and a/c condensers. How hard could it be? An eBay web search, a BMW 3-series oil cooler later (and headlights - bi-xenon HID's), some of my thick sign urethane and a generous application of fiberglass later, we have a functional spoiler with built in oil cooler. The linear actuator was an afterthought since I figured the air flow wouldn't go through the spoiler if it was retracted. I was right. For once.
Anyway.. after all that, the car had to go to paint at my buddy's shop. I let his crew do the hard work of sanding and straightening the panels. We didn't go crazy, just making sure the pinholes and all that were filled..
And I shot the color based on a rendering done and "approved" by the family..
Black base coat, Alsa Corp's Copper Penny flip flop additive in the clear coat (which I have spare of, if you need it Roger), and a stripe of Alsa's MirraChrome to blend the break in the paintline. Some detail work to the rear, and other than a few more trial seats and some interior work, it was done. Just in time for Carlisle 2004.
So.. indirectly, this car is responsible for:
A) resurrecting interest in the kit, as Dave bought the molds from Mike McBride shortly after Carlisle that year
B) spurred interest in a club for the kits based on the owners I had found through Sterling Central and what little info there was on the web at the time
C) Kick-started Warren into launching this forum which he had been working on for a couple years previous
The car has been featured on a cable TV show and in magazines, and I'm sure countless private photos over the years. While it didn't quite garner the media attention as Steve's car did on Long Island (helps when you're in the media industry, too), it had it's share.
Sometime in 2005 I needed cash to settle some long-standing debts and something had to go. Unfortunately, I treat most of my belongings as liquid assets, and this car would likely bring the most money. I don't think I had it on eBay more than a day when a fellow contacted me from Cleveland saying he'd pay cash if I delivered it. So that's where it went.. and had no further contact or knowledge of the car until Brian shot me an email with the CL listing from Florida. I think Roger probably has the same story from the seller as I have, so I'll let him finish the tale!
Guess I better make room somewhere, huh?
