Sterling Owners Group

The only Sterling model that was sold was the 800 series, which was a rebadged Rover 800-series but with different specifications tailored for the American market. At first, the saloon body-styled 825 (trims S or SL) saloon was sold. In 1988, the hatchback was added alongside the saloon, coinciding with the introduction of a new, larger, Honda engine and was called the 827 (trims SL or SLi).

In the United States and Canada it was only available with the V6 petrol engine. By 1989, the instrumentation had been changed to gauges sourced from a different component-builder (losing the oil pressure gauge and voltmeter in the process) and build quality had started to improve year for year. However these changes were too late to prevent the US-market version from later being withdrawn after poor sales.

(It should be noted that the 2.5 L Honda V6 was a completely different engine from the Rover KV6 engine introduced in 1996 (only sold in the USA in the Land Rover Freelander), although the two share the same 2.5 L capacity and V6 architecture.)SWARUP