rickjames8
Member
Hey folks. Some of you may remember me, and some may not. So an intro for those who don't.
I've been a fan of Sterlings ever since I was 10 years old (this was 1981). In fact, seeing my first Sterling turned me in to a 'car guy', and I've been once since. I bought my first one in 2001, and around that time built a (very basic!) website called Sterling Central (https://web.archive.org/web/20031219092743/http://sterlingcentral.com/) to be sort of a central repository of information. Because I had that site up, and it was one of the only Sterling/Nova sites at the time, I had folks send me all sorts of paper documentation to put on the site. I sold my Sterling when I decided to travel the world and sold everything I owned. (travelhead.com/trip). Around this time I met farfegnubbin who offered to take over my website. I gave him all my docs and turned over the site, and he improved it a hundred fold and recreated it in to this amazing site you see today. I met up with him and letterman7 at Carlile a few times over the years, and even got to see lettermans Sterlings at his place once.
I came back to the US in 2012 and started planning my next kit. I decided I wanted something more modern and in 2017 started to build a custom version of a Kelmark GT. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1993-ferrari-dino-tribute-delsol/ It ran and drove, but never got registered. I moved to France in 2022 and sold it because kit cars here are nearly impossible to register. Especially ones like my delSol-Kelmark. We'd bought a 500-year-old house in France and that would be my new project. I accepted the fact I'd likely never own another Sterling. Then I met Alex. He's a brit who lives 30 mins away and imports kits from the UK and sells them here. I told him I'd heard it was difficult to register kits in France, and he said so long as it met certain conditions, it wasn't impossible. The model needs to have been released in France (the Sterling/Nova was sold here as the Defi), and needs to have a certain title (V5C if from the UK) and must be registered as a kit, not as the base VW. Which meant I could potentially own a Sterling. So I reached out to letterman to let him know I was in the market and that if he saw anything interesting to let me know, but it had to have a title and be registered as a Sterling.
Then I started searching the US and UK (shipping costs from the USA are surprisngly not that much more) for listings. I needed to find something with good glass as the windows can't be found here. I'd have to buy one off letterman, and the shipping would likely be as much as the glass itself. In April I was outbid by a pound on an ebay-uk auction for a non-running project. Then, last weekend I was searching the ~15 links I checked now and then, and found one for sale. It was in the UK, listed for £1500, had good glass all around and a V5C registered as a Nova. Mechanically complete but not running. Fiberglass was rough, front valance missing, rear shelf missing (and replaced with a muscle-car snorkel), interior was mostly missing, electrics said to be 'half there'. The seller represented the car very fairly, but truth be told, the only thing I cared about was the glass. The rest I can fix or find. I made a full price offer the night I saw the ad.
The car just arrived today and I've contracted with a friend to store it at his place for a year. I've still got work to do on my house, then I have to get my garage built out (its currently an old barn). I don't want to be moving a non-running car around while that work happens, and I have no outside space. Yes, despite the fact we have barn, we're in the busy center of a historic town. And I can't park a non-registered car on the street. So I've got it at my friends.
My immediate plan now is to get a form called the FFVE. That's the main step needed to clear the registration process. To do that, I'll need to take some photos, and in those photos it should at least look like a complete car. So I'll get some cheap seats and carpet, and fabricate a mock-up valance, get rid of the rear scoop, then coat the whole car in epoxy primer. Once that's done, I'll work on getting the garage built out and then I'll bring it over and start turning it in to the car I want. I do want to modify it a bit, but I'm going to try to keep it simple. I don't want to turn it in to a lengthy project. I'd rather try to keep it simple and get it on the road. But we all know how that goes.
The seller included a lot of parts. Some I'll use, and some I won't. He included 2 sets of actuators: hydraulic and electric. The hydraulic ones look small, but the electric ones say they go 5mm/sec. Not sure how long they'd need to travel, but 5mm/sec feels slow. That's 5 seconds per inch. Anyway, I can bench test some of these bits while the car is over at my friends (which is 15 mins away). The car has an AudiTT dash which actually kind of fits wells, but will come out because I'm going to swap the car to LHD.
It's now time for be to go through all the build threads and see what folks have been up to, so I can get some inspiration! I don't imagine I'll make many updates here for a while.
Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/GKiETtR8p4YSMRcq7
I've been a fan of Sterlings ever since I was 10 years old (this was 1981). In fact, seeing my first Sterling turned me in to a 'car guy', and I've been once since. I bought my first one in 2001, and around that time built a (very basic!) website called Sterling Central (https://web.archive.org/web/20031219092743/http://sterlingcentral.com/) to be sort of a central repository of information. Because I had that site up, and it was one of the only Sterling/Nova sites at the time, I had folks send me all sorts of paper documentation to put on the site. I sold my Sterling when I decided to travel the world and sold everything I owned. (travelhead.com/trip). Around this time I met farfegnubbin who offered to take over my website. I gave him all my docs and turned over the site, and he improved it a hundred fold and recreated it in to this amazing site you see today. I met up with him and letterman7 at Carlile a few times over the years, and even got to see lettermans Sterlings at his place once.
I came back to the US in 2012 and started planning my next kit. I decided I wanted something more modern and in 2017 started to build a custom version of a Kelmark GT. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1993-ferrari-dino-tribute-delsol/ It ran and drove, but never got registered. I moved to France in 2022 and sold it because kit cars here are nearly impossible to register. Especially ones like my delSol-Kelmark. We'd bought a 500-year-old house in France and that would be my new project. I accepted the fact I'd likely never own another Sterling. Then I met Alex. He's a brit who lives 30 mins away and imports kits from the UK and sells them here. I told him I'd heard it was difficult to register kits in France, and he said so long as it met certain conditions, it wasn't impossible. The model needs to have been released in France (the Sterling/Nova was sold here as the Defi), and needs to have a certain title (V5C if from the UK) and must be registered as a kit, not as the base VW. Which meant I could potentially own a Sterling. So I reached out to letterman to let him know I was in the market and that if he saw anything interesting to let me know, but it had to have a title and be registered as a Sterling.
Then I started searching the US and UK (shipping costs from the USA are surprisngly not that much more) for listings. I needed to find something with good glass as the windows can't be found here. I'd have to buy one off letterman, and the shipping would likely be as much as the glass itself. In April I was outbid by a pound on an ebay-uk auction for a non-running project. Then, last weekend I was searching the ~15 links I checked now and then, and found one for sale. It was in the UK, listed for £1500, had good glass all around and a V5C registered as a Nova. Mechanically complete but not running. Fiberglass was rough, front valance missing, rear shelf missing (and replaced with a muscle-car snorkel), interior was mostly missing, electrics said to be 'half there'. The seller represented the car very fairly, but truth be told, the only thing I cared about was the glass. The rest I can fix or find. I made a full price offer the night I saw the ad.
The car just arrived today and I've contracted with a friend to store it at his place for a year. I've still got work to do on my house, then I have to get my garage built out (its currently an old barn). I don't want to be moving a non-running car around while that work happens, and I have no outside space. Yes, despite the fact we have barn, we're in the busy center of a historic town. And I can't park a non-registered car on the street. So I've got it at my friends.
My immediate plan now is to get a form called the FFVE. That's the main step needed to clear the registration process. To do that, I'll need to take some photos, and in those photos it should at least look like a complete car. So I'll get some cheap seats and carpet, and fabricate a mock-up valance, get rid of the rear scoop, then coat the whole car in epoxy primer. Once that's done, I'll work on getting the garage built out and then I'll bring it over and start turning it in to the car I want. I do want to modify it a bit, but I'm going to try to keep it simple. I don't want to turn it in to a lengthy project. I'd rather try to keep it simple and get it on the road. But we all know how that goes.
The seller included a lot of parts. Some I'll use, and some I won't. He included 2 sets of actuators: hydraulic and electric. The hydraulic ones look small, but the electric ones say they go 5mm/sec. Not sure how long they'd need to travel, but 5mm/sec feels slow. That's 5 seconds per inch. Anyway, I can bench test some of these bits while the car is over at my friends (which is 15 mins away). The car has an AudiTT dash which actually kind of fits wells, but will come out because I'm going to swap the car to LHD.
It's now time for be to go through all the build threads and see what folks have been up to, so I can get some inspiration! I don't imagine I'll make many updates here for a while.
Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/GKiETtR8p4YSMRcq7