The premiere post of a hopefully recurring series, where I'll give a fairly brief history of manufacturers, both past and present.
First company up is Sterling, who have quite a convoluted history.
Sterling was founded by William Sternberg in 1906 in Milwaukee, and was originally called Sternberg Motor Truck Company.
Near the beginning of World War 1, the name was changed to Sterling (reason unknown), and they built a great many trucks for the military.
In 1951 the company was purchased by White Motor Trucks, who phased out the Sterling moniker in 1953.
Interlude
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White has a super convoluted history: they had White trucks, White Freightliner, White/GMC, and Volvo/White (and possibly White/Autocar). White of course was bought by Volvo, and the White moniker faded into history.
From the 1950's to 1975, White distributed Freightliners for Consolidated Freightways, who created the FL. In 1974/1975 the partnership was terminated, and FL became a totally independent company.
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Apparently, when FL split from White, the Sterling name was conveyed to them, though how this deal came about is unclear.
FL would revive the Sterling name in 1997, this time to rebadge Ford's line of heavy trucks (Louisville/Aeromax lines), which FL had bought from Ford.
During their later years, Sterling was headquartered in Redford Township, Michigan, and their trucks were sold in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. Also during their twilight years, they tried selling rebadged trucks from other manufacturers, such as the Dodge Ram as Sterling Bullets, and the Mitsubishi Fuso Canter as the Sterling 360 - Daimler of course owns a majority of these companies. After the revival under Daimler, Sterling mostly sold vocational trucks; dumps, flatbeds, cranes, and daycab tractors - they offered sleeper cabs, but were not popular and very few were built as such. Eventually, Daimler ended Sterling production because they were not meeting sales expectations. Their St. Thomas, Ontario plant closed in 2009 and their Portland, Oregon plant closed in 2010.
Daimler still owns the Sterling name, but it is dormant as of January 2023, with no signs of anything happening with the brand.
Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed this new type of post, and this bit of Sterling history!
Gives me a whole new perspective now when I see a Sterling on the road. Interesting read.