The fascinating thing about the early history of the Cimbria, in my opinion, is that it seems like its relationship to the Sterling was originally totally denied (or at least greatly minimized), which makes the question of the timing of the first Cimbria kind of an interesting mystery. Or said another way, it would be very significant if we could find a Cimbria that we could actually confirm was older than the oldest Sterlings...which hasn't occurred (although the earliest Cimbrias DO seem to be remarkably close in age to the oldest Sterlings).
Joe seemed to originally market the car as a "totally original" design. Well...um...I respectfully challenge that. I think there's more to the story than that.
Without a doubt, Joe did an amazingly good job of taking the basic design of the Sterling/Nova and making it work quite nicely as a gull wing car. And along the way he added some very tasteful stylistic accents; not an easy feat to accomplish!
But here's the thing: I have a Generation I Cimbria and a Sterling sitting side by side in my garage, and there
ain't no way that the Cimbria was a "totally original" design that just happened to almost exactly mimic the Sterling/Nova in virtually every profile and contour. Yes, there are many important little differences to the individual body panels. But to my logic, it is virtually inconceivable that Joe
didn't start with a Sterling or Nova as a physical reference point.
Does this detract from the Cimbria? In my opinion, no, not one bit. I love my gen I Cimbria and think it's a wonderfully tasteful adaptation of an already really cool car.
And in a way, I can imagine why Joe would want or need to distance himself from (in my opinion) use of the Sterling as a starting point for legal reasons. Adding to this, the act of switching configuration to gull wing doors required a lot of intelligent engineering and definitely a TOTAL redesigning of the molds necessary. As such, I think it's very safe to describe the Cimbria as an (almost) total re-engineering/adaptation of the Sterling, even if it isn't "totally original."
But, c'mon... Very,very,very obviously he stared with a Sterling (or perhaps a Nova). I mean...just...c'mon!
If it walks like a Sterling and it quacks like a Sterling...
Perhaps after all of this time, if asked, he would just nonchalantly say, "Well duh! Of course!" I don't know. Or perhaps he was never very tenacious about denying a family resemblance all along.
Anyway, getting back to the (kind of) original thought: The first Sterlings seem to be from 1973, and the very first Cimbrias seem to be from just a little bit later...like perhaps just months later. If that is true, I think it's absolutely remarkable that Joe was able to recognize a cool design and actually pull of that significant of a redesign within just a few months. Wow! Go Joe!!
But yeah, I still defi anyone to find a Cimbria older than the oldest Sterlings. It's just a really strong suspicion I have.
(That said, I never despair in being wrong when it involves learning something new, so if we really CAN fine one older than a Sterling, that's really cool...and it'll make us change how we think of the history and evolution of these cars.)
As always, keep the discussions light and friendly. It's always hard to hear people's "tone" in print. Assume the best, not the worst. Think of these issues as a community effort to refine the history of the cars. *hi-ya*
