As the owner of a running 1989 Sterling 827 SLi, thank you for making the most detailed history of these things on all of KZfaq. Of the 41,000 sold in North America from 87-91, there's only 184 running examples left and it's just sad but incredibly understandable. To be completely honest, owning this car is a complete nightmare and parts are practically nonexistent but hey, it is cool to drive around.

I bought a six year old 825 in about 1993, lovely Honda V6 engine and although it blew a head gasket it was probably my fault. The windscreen wipers had a mind of their own but apart from that I can’t think of many other faults in the four or five years that I owned the car 🇬🇧🏍

No matter what the problem, British management's solution is to rename something or change the company structure. I bet you could find a manager of "Rover (Sterling US) BL Austin Ltd" who didn't realise that they made cars

Thank You great video. I worked a a British Rover dealer in the 80s and was at launch of the Rover 800 in 1986 , Rover had put a lot of time and effort into this car and it was a true collaboration between them and Honda , unlike previous models such as the Acclaim and 200 Balade Rovers. I was quite impressed at the attention to detail and build quality of the 800 though rather alarmed at the price of the top of the line Sterling at £ 21,000. I always amazed me and i know you discused the reasons in the video, why they did not use the Rover brand in the USA ? It always seemed to me that there was an identify crisis within the Rover Group, and that creates uncertainty among buyers in my opinion. The only time i remember seeing a Sterling on American TV an it was on Dales driven by Cliff Barnes, Maybe that speaks volumes!

I love the designs of the British cars such a Shame about the build issues, I always liked the TR7 such a Sharp little car.

Great video! I think the TR7 is another worthy subject for a future video. There are plenty of interesting anecdotes about its time being built at the Speke factory - or not built...

My uncle had a Sterling 825SL when I was a kid. Was really unique for the time but had constant issues and was constantly at the dealer for warranty repairs.

My father bought an 825 back in 1987 and though it had its problems, he kept it on the road until 2004 when he passed away. Biggest headache was the electrical system, as there was always something off. Car drove and handled very well for what it was. He gave it away in the end, but I do miss it. Thanks for the memories.

Saw an 827 in great condition around the Seattle area in the Summer of '17. White, well cared for coming off the I-405 cloverleaf North of Bellevue. Looked like a teenager behind the wheel. I'd never seen or heard of one before. Yet there it was. A Rover badge placed on some ambiguous Japanese-looking citypop spaceship. You could easily look at some footage of this with some Mariya Takeuchi ballad echoing in the background.

I was in the position of deciding between a Sterling and Acura Legend in 1988. The biggest problem for me was I used the car for business and traveled a lot to places like Idaho and North Dakota. While Honda was still not Chevy or Ford in terms of dealership numbers. There was generally at least one Honda dealership in any town of about 5,000. Sterling, OTOH, may have had two dealerships in all of North Dakota and I think three in Idaho. I really liked just sitting in a Serling dealership car and just smelling the leather and wood. It was the last of the "real" British cars, even though we all knew the leather and wood were about the only things British in it., Oh, that and those terrible Lucas electrics. Still, I think I would have taken the chance on it, even after the JD Powers debacle if only it was a Rover. British car aficionados in the US still knew Rover produced well engineered and sporty sedans, and I probably would have cut Rover some slack as they worke don those early problems. Sterling ? Well, who knew? It was really the final nail in the coffin for the last of the British cars in the US.

I never understood why TR7 was derided on it's styling. As a teenager in the 90's I lusted over Fiat X1/9, later Scimiter Sabres, TVR Tasmin and the TR7 because they looked so different at that time.

We had a sterling dealer in Fayetteville NC. It was somewhat posh but then they started to sell Yugos as well , I still to this day want a Sterling five door hatch I know it can be taken care of at the local Honda dealer !

There's an episode of Dallas where you can just see a Sterling; I think it was season 10 so 1988. Bobby sweeps into South Fork (in his Mercedes SL) where JR is holding a party and parked up outside is a white Sterling. The camera doesn't stop on the Sterling but if you know the shape of the Mk1 Rover 800, you can tell what it is :)

Super video. Thanks

I met some of the people involved in this and the outcome could hardly have been in doubt. They were good people and trained to a standard but there was always a problem internally at the organisation that they were making great product and priced accordingly while the product was merely OK. They also struggled to think internationally, it was as if seeing the rest of the world was a tough one, a sort of well if it’s good enough for the midlands it’s good enough for the world type attitude. Ultimately they had a few good years with some rebadged Hondas but the lack of depth in leadership was telling. They seemed to not want to understand why everyone wanted BMW Merc etc if prestige priced.

Remember really liking the Sterling when I saw it driving around as a kid. Everything was just Honda, Honda, Honda, Nissan, Honda; so anything that was different was appealing.

great video, but depressing...can not count the lost opportunities...

I seen the car at an auto show in 1988 and I fell in love with it, I knew the auto transmission was troublesome, but I would have to buy one if I had the money. It is too bad that English cars could not sell in the US, except for a handful of brands and most had the backing of a larger brand, like Ford, VW, and BMW

In late June 1996, I bought a 1991 827SLi - the Hatchback! Black on Tan Leather (with Suede in the center) Perfect condition. It only needed 2 "small things" that "should be really cheap" (1) The RF lense cover for the turn signal (2) Center caps for the Factory Sport rims that came with the car. That's it - that's all it needed! Simple Right? in 1996 it was a nightmare to find parts. The Center Caps = $75 a piece in 1996 ($128.68 as of 6-17-21) The lense cover? Forget it. When you could find them: almost $200 ($343.14 as of 6-17-21) A piece of plastic to cover the front right turn signal indicator. Would I buy one again? ABSOLUTELY!

I'm sure there was a story relayed to me that the Rover enginerrs sent the engineering/CAD drawings of the front subframe assembly to one of their suppliers.... however.... they sent them without measurements, and with no communication from the Rover engineers had to substitute all the values into all the blank spaces. Now, whilst the subframe fitted correctly, the front suspension geometry was out of whack and the early Rover 800 models handled really badly. It was only until much later everyone had figured out what had gone wrong, and the subframe drawings were submitted that they'd actually got a product that handled better. But this was always the sort of stupidity BL cars always got themselves into.

An informative video.Thank you.

This tracks with what I remember of Sterling. I was in high school when it rolled out. It looked great but had terrible quality problems, and that's the lasting impression us Yankees have of British cars. I remember new management insisting improvements had been made but by then the damage was done. I haven't a Sterling on the road in decades.

Another enjoyable video. Always look forward to your uploads. I do though, miss your verbal 'thank you' sign off at the end.

The mark1 fastback was a lovely looking car...

I personally believe the main issue is two fold in regard to the Sterling: 1. They didn't make an internal agreement with Honda to launch the cars simultaneously and utilizing the at the time already rather expansive honda dealer network. 2. Not compounding the range rover and other models sold in the US into a single sales entity also hurt the numbers, focing sterling to do it all on its own, which with it being effectively a new brand would be tough.

7:54 I had no idea the Biener auto group had a Sterling dealer.

Great video and lots of lessons to be learned in a marketing course. Agree with all the comments. I moved from Ireland to the US and it is fascinating to see how European products change when they are launched in the US and vice versa. These cars weren't great and lack of a dealer network really hurt them too. There are lots of other motoring brands that haven't made it over to the US either (Peugot, Citroen etc) - so its a tough nut to crack.

Love it!

The film-footage of all those Minis came from advertising material for the Australian Mini!

Lots of connecting rod bearing failures on these too. Recall repairing many at the import garage where i was working.

Such a shame Honda let Rover down in these years, hence they didnt need a rival on the US market. The new introduced 3,2 V6 was also denied for Rover. As an owner of 827 I can not confirm one of these problems as they were fixed later on from the early 90´s, the car starts in 2020 as it was parked yesterday. Litterally every button works. Compared to the W124 which looks like a brick, a rusting away BMW E34 although with better performance, or Audi 100 which looks like a bathtub the Rover 800 is in a class of its own simply not comparable. Cant remember I saw a car with real leather seats the last time. A true underrated Legend. Great Respect for all engineers who brought this beauty to life. Best Rover built indeed. In Comparison the 75 and Jag XJ8 are just a joke.

I had a couple, one 87 825 SL and a 91 827 Si. Both had a ton of issues but I enjoyed the quirks. The '87 is still going to the guy I sold it to, lol.

1980s Hondas were masterpieces of engineering, the closest mankind had ever come to a working method of immortality. I can barely comprehend the level of incompetence necessary to turn a Honda into a car with British Leyland levels of unreliability.

Designed in the age of straight edge, right-angled design work...Sterling. It really wasn't a surprise that Rover/MG/British Leyland went to the wall...

I enjoyed the video; however if you were in the United States and purchase this car instead of an Acura legend you were not good at making decisions

The new kv6 2.7 was a reliability treat, How a the head from a racing k series minus one pot ended up on a hand jigged engine beats me, lots of good points bluetacked together.

I am always amazed by all of the car channels going on about the “reliability” of Japanese cars in the 80’s and 90’s. Working as an mechanic in the late 80’s-early 90’s I can say that if it wasn’t for Japanese cars, I would have starved. A day couldn’t go by without having at least 2-3 Japanese cars in for repairs. Doing brake jobs and suspension work on Hondas alone made me a great living. And yes, I know brakes are considered maintenance, but with Hondas, it was like changing the oil. They had terrible calibers and rotors from the factory, and if you replaced them with Honda parts (most customers insisted on parts from the manufacturer), you would be back within a year to have them replaced. Both Toyota and Nissan/Datsun had issues with CV joints and front end suspension parts. And rust was an issue on all Japanese cars from the 70’s until into the 90’s. Not just surface rust or rusted out fender, they would rust out at critical mounting points on the unibody. Nothing like having a control arm or strut come off because of rust. I will give them credit on power trains though. Most of their engines produced the same power as an lawn tractor, but they would run on for ever (minus the a few issues with head gaskets). They knew how to build very reliable small engines, much better than the US companies that were struggling with underpowered V6s and V8s during much of the 80’s. Chrysler was the only one having any success with 4 cylinder engines. So I guess people relate a reliable engines as a reliable car, and forget the other mechanical issues. Same is true now with people relating hard to use tech, or issues with the tech, on new cars as being unreliable.

We used my friend's dad's TR7 as a sliding board wearing our riveted Levis. It did not end well. . .

If they sold these things as Rovers, at Land Rover dealerships, they might have had a chance after the face-lift if quality was increased. Land Rover had a good name with the wealthy despite lackluster reliability, and Rover should have been riding that wave. Nobody knew what a sterling was. I remember reading Autotraders as a kid (because i have always been a gearhead) and seeing ads where people constantly said "it's an Acura", or "it's the same as an acura" to get people to buy them used. Sterling had no name recognition.

The only car I remember was the TR7. And that only as a slot car on my TYCO racetrack.

I remember reading about a letter sent to owners of Sterlings at the end congratulating the owners on owning a collectors item. That went over well.

For sure the Sterling cars are not the last mass produced British cars to be sold in America. May I remind you of the highly successful Minis? Perhaps instead of a Japanese accent they have a Bavarian accent, but all the same most are produced in Swindon and Oxford and are shipped around the world, including the USA.

So basically the problem was poor build quality of the British built vehicles? The Acura Legend which is more or less the same car won awards for its reliability. A shame BL never got that problem solved. Quality had been declining since the early 70’s or maybe everyone else’s quality just kept getting better.

Not a bad video. There are a few factual errors, though. The Austin-Healey Sprite wasn’t being sold in the US or anywhere else by the end of the 1970s, as it had been discontinued after 1971. And while the Rover 800 was the last volume British saloon car sold in the US, it was sold as a luxury car rather than a mainstream model. The Mini is the only mainstream-priced, British-made car on the US market now. The original Land Rover Freelander was also a mainstream compact SUV offering on the US market after the Sterling was dropped. Also, the Rover/Sterling 800 and Honda/Acura Legend did not share body panels as the video says. In addition, the saloon was sold as both an 825 and an 827, while the 5-door liftback was only sold as an 827, as it launched after the 2.7L V6 that gave the 827 its last 2 digits replaced the 2.5L V6 the Sterling debuted with.

Had an austin america in los angeles.....in 1974...Good luck getting it fixed and parts...sold it for a new subaru

God, what happened to the car industry over the last 40 years? everything has gone downhill since 1989

Rover 800 was actually a really good car, obviously let down by the shoddy build but as a native Brummy it's no surprise. My dad had an 820 vitesse, a late one and I later had an 820si, nothing wrong with them apart from the fact that rover and their marketing and QC departments were absolutely useless.

No mention of the Oxford Edition of the car?

I had one for a while. It was a great car to drive but far to expensive to run.

These were sold right around the same time the Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable were launched. They faced a lot of strong competition from existing brands, and given the questionable reliability of past English imports, they never really had a chance. How well I remember a co-workers Triumph Spitfire and the problems he had with it. I honestly don't believe it ever ran an entire week without issues and he eventually traded it in on a Chevy Monza in the early 80's. The Monza was a piece of crap, but it ran reliably. The first new car I ever purchased was an 89 Ford Taurus. It was a groundbreaking car at the time, and lived up to the hype.

This cars' claim to fame was doing whst was never thought possible, "how to ruin a Honda". Thats a sterling accomplishment!

I remember the arrival and sudden demise of the Sterling marque in the US. The original appeal was that it was (thought) to be a British version of the newly introduced Acura which to American buyers meant that they would be British built versions of the Acura with some classic British touches added. They were great looking cars with a lot of promise. They were greatly anticipated and the for the first several months they were snapped up as soon as they hit the dealers showrooms, but it quickly descended into chaos. The cars were a mix of Honda and Austin-Rover parts. Most ominously, the Sterlings were equipped with Lucas electrical systems which were already well known in the US as the bane of owners of British built sports cars. Lucas Girling was not so jokingly known as the "Prince of Darkness." The rush to get them to market ended up with some design oversights that while minor, were just one more headache for owners. The classic error was the hood (bonnet) release was left on the right side of the now left hand drive car making something as simple as checking the oil a pain in the ass for the driver. Coupled with terrible component quality control problems and poor build quality with leaks, gauge failures, poor fitment, with the high price matching an entry level luxury car and the Sterling was doomed before the first year was out. As I recall around the same time a model of the Honda Civic convertible to be badged as an MG was proposed for sale in the US. It died aborning as quickly as it had surfaced when the Sterling marque collapsed. As Automobile magazine described it, "Honda developed the powertrain; ARG engineered the structure and suspension. The body-in-white, powertrain, driveline, seat frames, climate control, and other such parts were shared, but when it came to suspension tuning, sheet metal, and interior design, the two companies went their separate ways." And the rest is history!!!

The sad tale of the decline of the British motor industry is littered with stories like this, always so much potential thwarted by ineptitude or lack of funds. One note though, the Metropolitan was actually a Nash. The concept and styling was all theirs, the manufacture being farmed out to BMC as it was cheaper than setting a production facility in the US to build it themselves. One could almost say it was one of the earliest "world cars".

Poor management. Bad labour relations. Poor marketing strategies. Poor approach to shared components. Outdated manufacturing processes. Confused car ranges.

Could you make a video of class 28

I think most of these businesses fail because they don’t realize just how diverse the U.S is. I mean sure I bet the E.U and Asia is also diverse but you do realize that we have the diversity of all of Eurasia in one country. Just having one or two cars isn’t going to satisfy all demands. Couple that with the fact that historically the U.S has favored domestic builds (irony at its height) and the odds are just stacked against foreign companies.

I remember when these came out in the U.S. Stylish for the time, and appeared high-end luxury or near luxury, but the quality and reliability was terrible. Too many other better priced and better built options at the time, so that was that.

The design of the Sterling looks much like the Alfa Romeo 164 of the same period 🙄🤔

BMC later to become Leyland Australia enjoyed success here until they were sunk by the Chrysler, Ford and Holden. Austin and Morris had some decent small cars but they too came under siege from Japanese cars that were well built with no warranty claims. Leyland Australia changed tack and decided to confront the big three with a large family car instead. It was a massive flop and it sent them broke, local assembly ceased and the plant was sold off. Rover, Austin and Morris are just distant memories now. The final insult is happening now. Hideous looking Chinese buzz boxes running around wearing MG badges. Sad, very sad really.

A lot of false information in the historical narrative. The deal with Honda was not about 'reliable parts'. It was about sharing costs of development for RG and for Honda -and for Honda to gain a foothold in Europe through RG. That is why RG owned a stake in the Honda Europe factory and built Honda-badged versions of Rover cars in the UK. The 800 was not a 'Legend with Rover badges', but a truly jointly-developed car and the Legend differed considerably to most 800s as the Rovers had mostly British Rover engines and were offered in far greater numbers, as well as in two bodystyles. The Legend only came in saloon form with the weak 2.5 Honda V6, (an engine which was quickly enlarged at Rover's request to suit British tastes) and which only a small percentage of Rover 800s ever used. It was replaced by the Rover KV6 engine in the mid-90's. Most 800s used the O/M or T-series Rover engines as well as a few with the diesel engine from the Range Rover. It is worth noting that Honda didn't have an e-segment car and hence went with Rover, while Rover had planned to use an evolution of the British-developed Montego platform for the 800 until the Honda suggestion came about. The 800 and Legend shared few exterior panels (the narrator was wrong about this as well) and it was only the platform that was truly co-developed. It may be a long time ago, but such poor research by the channel and such false information needs to be corrected.

Again, almost every time a British motor reviewer presents a story involving American cars, there are egregrious factual errors. The last video that I watched in this series (Leyland P76) referred to the Rover V8 / ex-General Motors Buick engine as having powered pickup trucks was a glaring error that myself and other commentators noticed. Here, the "1950s American Luxury Car" that I can only presume is intended to be a Cadillac is the lower end of the car market - a Chevrolet. Later in the video, the competion lists BMW 325, Mercedes-Benz W124, Audi 100, Mercury Sable, and Buick LeSabre. Unfortunately the red LeSabre coupe that looks to be picked off the Internet as it has non-stock "bling" or "donk" wagon wheels is an '80 to '85 model, which is a completely different animal compared to the new, downsized '86 front-wheel drive model. An interesting video seriously undermined by haphazard research.

This is the stupidest marketing strategy I've ever heard of.

Sterlings were understood to be utter heaps .

Well even RR/Bentley cars had reliability issues during 1980's. And I actually wonder what could happen to Jaguar without Ford partnership. They were even worse in the early 90's IMO.

I dont understand how the brits couldnt build a more reliable car if they had help from Honda. What is the point of such partnership if you dont improve your build quality. Also Honda actually had a factory in uk from 1985 till 2020.

British carmakers: 'Let's see what we can do to destroy our brand even more...'

Car go broooooooooooooooooom

A contributing factor to it's lacking popularity could also be it's bland "generic car" looks. It actually looks much like the canadian built Reanults, I can never remember the names of, due to their extreme boringness (... pauses to Google ...) Eagle Premier, it was.

In the late '60s my parents had an MG Midget. i used to sit sideways on the little bench behind the 2 seats! It's a wonder anyone survived before the Nanny State took over! 🙁🖖

I dunno, what's the matter with them. Must have been drunk the whole time.

B fore the Sterling, the problem was that Compliance was exactly what Didnt happen under BL. No investment in making sure cars properly passed the crash and emissions legislation with a clearly achieved status. If they had persued proper Brico AE EFi earlier with the Triumph Stag, Triumph 2500 Pi, Triumph GT6, Jaguar XK-E V12, and Rover 3500 P6 and the MGB GT V8 using the MGC chassis base. BL never developed anything, and never invested in tooling advances or rationalisation of the plants tjat made them. Total opposite to what the Japanese and South Koreans did at the same time.

A lot of inaccuracies throughout that video - Don't know where to start really - but on the final point that "British mass-production cars would never return to US shores" bear in mind that Jaguar Land Rover and Mini between them sent over 200,000 cars (built in Britain) to the USA in 2018 (more in fact than the UK ever sent to the USA in any year in the 20th century).

What is this with british hobby of fixing everything with radiator grill? Low sales for allegro? Radiator grill. Low sales of Sterling? Radiator grill.

I don't understand how the Rover folks managed to take a Honda and make it unreliable. I think if they had just put some wood and leather on the Legend and leaned into advertising it as a Honda for badge snobs it might've been more successful. Honda had done a pretty good job of selling the Acura brand as a Honda for badge snobs though, so maybe not. Honestly, it seems a strange to sell the Legend and the 800 in the same market at the same time at similar prices. Considering Honda's reputation for quality and anything British being considered worse than even French and Italian cars, who in their right mind would've bought the 800 instead of the Legend?

Bacon

4:31 Wow Mr. Van, turn your lights on you twat! cripes! I think he actually **has** his lights on =/ I'd be dead in 5 minutes in that thing with my night vision.

Did they do it on purpose? I mean, just how badly can you mess up your heritage by 'accident'? Shoddy, substandard quality of finish based on what was likely one of the most reliable marques (Honda). Sheesh. Poor show, Rover!

The story of British Leyland is the perfect example of why governments should never, ever get involved with the ownership or management of private companies.

It was really poorly executed when the reputation of British cars in thevUS was that of poorly built and unreliable rust buckets thanks to all the BMC and Leyland cars that immediately preceded it (going back all the way to the 60s and the Cortina in the US, and the Lucas Electrics issues, and the MGs that rotted away) to just try to change the name of the company (like nobody would know when its all over the automotive press and on TV shows), and then have such a poor level of quality and service when launched. As you had in the video, if you wanted a Honda Legend which was much better built and way more reilable, you'd just buy the Acura. Ford tried this, too, with Merkur, and it ended up with the same results. The French were also folding in the US at the same time with AMC being a failure for Renault and being sold on to Chrysler. Peugeot and Fiat also left at that same time. It was a bad time all around for European cars in the US as thevJapanese marques really came into thier own in the 80s, and we still had three very strong domestic manufacturers. It was a fools errand, which seems to have been par for the course at BL.

You forgot to mention that Sterlings were just BUTT UGLY! That's why they didn't sell. Had nothing to do with your other reasons except for consumer awareness! The more people who saw them didn't like them so there never was a push to market.

Audible Clicks between the slides somewhat distracting have to say…🫤