From the September/October 2026 issue of Car and Driver.

On one Fourth of July, when I was 11, I purchased a Roman candle with the M-80 airburst option. Its trajectory was catastrophically altered by a tree in our public park—who would plant a tree in a public park?—and the flaming missile impacted Mr. Reedy’s Pontiac Bonneville, whereupon the M-80 detonated in the right-front wheel well.

“I didn’t see that coming,” I told an empurpled Mr. Reedy as he elongated my left ear. I think it’s a lament common to car manufacturers too.

I mean, how astonished must Mazda have been when Italians begged to turn the Miata into a Fiat 124 Spider? How many Subaru engineers flatlined when their BRZ was rebadged as neither a Toyota nor a Lexus but a low-budget Scion? Did several Chevrolet execs topple into the gutter when Isuzu asked, “Can we badge your TrailBlazer as an Ascender?” And what shall we make of Chrysler trawling Gaul to sell a Renault 25 they badged as neither a Chrysler nor a Plymouth but an Eagle Premier. “Ze Eagle, she iz un bird, n’est-ce pas? Un pigeon, oui?” Oui.

Marque misbranding, clone jobs, and summary sellouts—none of that is new. But at least some of it is memorable. In the ’80s, for instance, the Brits at the Austin Rover Group got together with Honda to develop their own version of the first-gen Acura Legend. Rover’s intention: Sell the Japanese Legend as a British Sterling—yep, as in “pound sterling.” Apart from three psychic Welsh corgis, nobody saw this coming.

The Sterling 825 and 827 were sold here from 1987 to ’91, about three years longer than anyone predicted. Upon arrival, the sedan was an improvement in one sense. Rover had stiffened the suspension and fitted their version with a tweedier interior: Connolly leather upholstery, burl-wood trim, a tablespoon of Earl Grey in the crankcase. You couldn’t call the Rover’s styling an improvement. And how could the well-meaning Brits botch the relationship between the steering wheel and the driver’s seat? Why would they even touch it?

Sportier than the Legend, the Sterling finished second in a 1989 comparison of mid-$20K sedans, behind only the 220-hp Ford Taurus SHO. Of course, few had ever heard of Sterling except as flatware you’d display at Christmas. So, we were struck dumb when 14,171 of them sold in the first year. We didn’t see that coming.

Then, concern. Our test car’s cigarette lighter failed. Insignificant, yes, although in that era, this was a feature valued as highly as brakes. Second, the power seat adjuster perished. I had to array three official Flintstones sofa cushions to see over the wipers.

Might these blemishes signal the tip of Malfeasance Mountain? Well, yes. Because what died next, three times, was everything. That is, the engine, while humming at 2500 rpm or so, expired as if gutshot by Dick Cheney. That, in turn, snuffed the power assist, all the gauges, the headlights, and most of my dog’s respect. These sudden “silence soirees” seemed to occur only in high-speed intersections, a novel challenge mid-commute and a rare instance of silence waking you fully. And, since nothing relieves stress like a laugh, popping the hood required reaching into the passenger’s footwell.

Holy mother of Joseph Lucas, tell me that Sterling didn’t insert their Cadbury-sticky fingers into Honda’s bombproof electronics. Please.

We published these quirks, and Sterling, uh, “invited” me to the Miami Grand Prix for a stroppy debriefing in a hotel neither of us could afford. It was like being interrogated by Rupert Murdoch in his Wapping lair. Months later, a lawyer phoned. Apparently, Sterling owners were pondering a class action suit. “You’re gonna testify, right?” the lawyer asked. Oh, boy.

Like the cream it was, the legendary Legend rose to the top of J.D. Power’s ratings for fewest reported problems. Meanwhile, Sterling hovered near the bottom. The same car. Could someone screw up that badly? Yes. No. Come on. Not possible. Yes, it is. No, it isn’t. Shut up. No, you shut up.

In ’91, Sterling met its maker, sending mortified Honda execs to loiter outside the Aoyama Building. Waving stun guns, is what I heard. Ginsu knives for sure. Everyone saw this coming.

John Phillips first began writing about cars in 1974, at Car Weekly in Toronto. He later worked for Ford Racing, then served for seven years as the Executive Editor of Car and Driver. In the interim, he has written for Harper's, Sports Illustrated, The Toronto Globe and Mail, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Conde Nast Traveler. He enjoyed a one-on-one interview with Joe Biden and is the author of the true-crime saga God Wants You to Roll and the memoir Four Miles West of Nowhere. In 2007 he won the Ken Purdy Award for journalism. He lives with his wife, Julie, in the Bitterroot Valley.

Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt