Anyone ever own a Sterling 825/827?

A good Friday question here I was reading through some of my old car magazines and came across a test of the Sterling 825 which brought back memories.

I never owned one, but I remember in the 1980's, in the sedan category there were two cars I thought were a great design/concept- the 1990 Lexus LS 400 (the literature I picked up at the auto show in 1989 detailed the great lengths they went through to make the car reliable/durable and luxurious) and the Sterling, which came out around 1987. My gut was way right on one car and way wrong on the other.

The Sterling seemed like a great concept to me- it had the then fabulous Acura Legend running gear (V6 and tranny) married to traditional British interior design- at the time to me it had an amazing mixture of wood, leather and luxury. However if I recall correctly, the reliability (of the electronics) killed the car in the market- my belief the car would succeed was way off. I though the idea of letting Honda/Acura do what they do best and the Brit's do what they do best was a great idea. Someone didn't realize Honda (or anyone else!) should have handed the electronics instead of Lucas!

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone bought one of these cars new (or used)? What was it like to own in its day? They were pretty rare, and today non-existant as people probably just gave up on them (like the mid-late 80's Audi 5000s- I used to see the 5000s everywhere, but then they all seemed to have died after about 6-7 years vs. mid-late 80's BMWs and Mercedes which I still see quite frequently today, in 2013- a testament to the durability of the period BMW/Mercedes) I'm digressing on the Audi 5000s and other cars - more curious on the Sterling with this post.

 

Like this one that just sold (although it's non turbo)! Rare to see a survivor 5000s as I think they all crapped out by now...rarer to see a red one!

Audi : Other 5000s in Audi | eBay Motors

Here's the ebay link to the photo bucket- actually in decent shape for $1,500 sale price! I'm sure fixing the minor issues and bringing it up to proper maintenance will cost another $1,500

http://www.use.com/36c0981656ba64f008ba?p=52#photo=52




There must be someone on here that bought a Sterling back in the day! Anyone?

 

TheMayor- that's a great post! I don't know why I find some of this stuff interesting..I love to see what cars were like in their specific time, especially cars that for some reason I find interesting either for the car itself, or for a newish market it was trying to "open" (the Japaneese/British mix was certainly one!)

One thing this is sort of interesting, is TheMayor picked the Sterling on a price-dependent basis in the consumer test. I remember when the Acura Legend came out- there was likely a waiting list vs. Sterling which seems to have never sold well. That means the delta of the actual negotiated selling price would have been larger than the delta for MSRP, which means TheMayor may have bought a Sterling if he were in the market for a luxury sedan at the time- same for actual buyers in the market. My guess is once people actually researched the cars and did their homework to actually lay out the cash, they were more comfortible with a Honda based premium line vs. unproven Honda/Rover alliance...I wasn't buying cars in the early/mid 1980's, but remember my parents having a lot of faith in Honda based on the reliability by that time and buying two (a civic and accord- Acura was too expensive and they were not "car people" anyway)...even if they (or similar buyers) were moving a little more upscale, I don't think they would have taken a chance on a Sterling if they were in the luxury market.

Still no actual owners here (except indirectly through 355 Dreamer's dad).