8. Sterling 825
If you don’t know what the Sterling 825 is, nobody can blame you. They once marketed it as the next big thing in the luxury segment for the American market. However, the Sterling is now a forgotten brand that failed to leave its mark. In fact, it quickly moved to the margins of automotive history. Sterling, as a company, has an interesting story. It was a British company they established in the late ’80s with Honda’s capital and Rover’s design.
Back then, Honda owned Rover and wanted to enter the American market with a luxury model. So, they conceived the Sterling, a luxurious car they based on the Acura Legend. Although it was quite a strange combination, the finished product had an attractive interior and decent power from Honda’s V6 engine. After the introduction in 1987 and promising sales numbers in the first few months, the first problems showed up.
The Sterling was poorly put together and the electronics were troublesome. Also, some cars developed rust issues. Honda tried to improve the production process, but there wasn’t much they could do. So, by the early ’90s, the Sterling was gone and nobody was sad about it, not even Honda.