Pedro in Woonsocket, RI, has got this Sebring kit car on a 1969 VW chassis (with drop floors) up for sale at an asking price of $3,500. Drop him an email at BigPedro713@yahoo.com if you’re interested.
Scott’s got a nice clean looking Sebring up for sale that needs just a little TLC to get it perfect — it’s a 1979 Sebring with a 1600cc VW pan. The engine needs a bit of work (fuel pump, etc) to get it running, but on the whole it looks good and the electric top works. Scott’s a tall guy (6′3″) and doesn’t quite fit so he’s selling the car, located in Westerville, Ohio. Asking price is $4,400 — write him at ras3549@netscape.net if you’re interested.
Without a doubt, this Sebring kit car (located near Fort Myers, Florida) has seen better days, but still… it’s a Sebring. With two jobs plus school, the current owner — email him at hondahatch@hotmail.com — doesn’t have time to work on it and has put it up for sale at an asking price of only $1,700 (trades will also be considered). It’s on a VW Beetle frame (”has a little bit of rust” — it’s been sitting for a few years) with a 1600cc engine. The sun roof and passenger side glass are broken, but since those are just flat glass they’re simple to replace. Body work has been started, with some of it already sanded to the gel coat. The top is working great. It needs lots of TLC, but this could be a great project to take over for someone in the market for a Sebring.
My posting may be a little sporadic (or at least come in bursts) until September because I’m taking this time off to spend the last couple weeks of summer with my daughter in between summer camp and the start of school.
There’s a very nice “Factory Built” 1979 Sebring (the “old man’s Sterling”) up for sale right now in Jackson, Florida (#290254082416). It looks really clean and finished with under 9,000 miles on a recently serviced rebuilt 1.8L VW performance engine. The car is original, never painted, and running strong, with a perfectly operating roof. Assuming the car’s description is accurate, this is one of the few Sebrings that you could step into that’s as close to a production car as VW kits tend to get.
There’s a Bremen Sebring project car up for sale on eBay (#140255718617) right now in Marshall, Texas (where that nice Aztec 7 is also up). I think at $3,500 it’s probably overpriced, although given that it’s sat since purchased and is covered in a mountain of dust, it’s hard to tell. The buyer had intended to convert it to electric, but never ended up doing anything… For someone willing to tackle it, the current driveline has potential as it’s a rotary engine out of an RX-7.
In the 70s, Al Hildenbrand was a Sterling distributor that thought he could improve the car, and in 1980 he released a more “mainstream” looking (to my eyes) version that had a broad set of changes called the “Bremen Sebring”. Most obviously, the roof has been raised a little, and the “door” also extends lower (in later versions — early Sebrings retained the Sterling top). He also shortened the nose and added bumpers, as well as raising the headlights and converting them to pop-ups. Minor stylistic changes were made across the bodywork. Personally I feel that it looses a bit of the over-the-top exotic feel of the original, but it’s still a wilder car than almost anything on the road.
The National Sterling Association estimates that about 1,500 were made in all, but I suspect that number is actually quite a bit lower than that.
James’s Sebring is built around a 2.8L V6 water cooled engine (which includes air conditioning) mated to the 4-speed VW Beetle transmission. He’s located in Oklahoma City, and the first person to bring him $5,000 drives away in the car (he drives it regularly and it runs fine). You can reach him via email at JmsShively@aol.com.
At the other end of the electric kit car spectrum from the previous one posted is Jonathan Trotter’s 1973 Sebring (Sterling). It’s built on a 1971 IRS Beetle pan (four wheel disc brakes, new rotors, calipers, hoses, cables ball joints, and bearings, and all chrome steering linkage, as well as new shocks, new rims and tires). The car looks good with new paint, new interior, a new wiper motor, arm, and blade, new weather strips, and new gauges.
The electric system is 144 volts, with a D&D motor, a Curtis controller, a Zivan charger, and Optima deep cell batteries. It will do 75 mph and has a range of thirty to a hundred miles depending on driving habits. Jonathan built the car in October 2007 and it has a new VIN and registration as an electric vehicle in Missouri. He’s asking $24,000 so he can move on to other projects, and says he’s invested much more than that. Write him at jonathantrotter@hotmail.com if you’re interested.
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