Sterling Trucks

Sternberg/Sterling Motor Truck Company (1907–1953)

The original company was founded in 1906 by William Sternberg as the Sternberg Motor Truck Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Early models offered were of cab-over design, in 1-, 1.5- 3.5- and 5-ton capacities. Sternberg changed the company name to Sterling at the onset of World War I. Sterling built many different heavy-duty trucks for commercial, construction and military customers in the ensuing years. In 1938, Sterling sold 267 units and in 1939 it increased to 326 trucks.

The company was bought by White Motor Corporation on June 1, 1951. About two years later, the Sterling nameplate was retired.

As the Sterling trademark had become dormant for so long, when Freightliner (whose own trucks were distributed by White Motor Corporation from the 1950s to 1975) sought to use the name in 1997, there were no grounds for objection from Volvo.

Model in angle bracket = ⟨bus⟩

Sterling Trucks Corporation (1997–2009)

The Sterling name was applied by Freightliner to Class 8 tractors, as well as a range of medium- and heavy-duty cab/chassis vehicles as a continuation of the Ford L-Series after Freightliner's purchase of Ford's heavy truck product lines and the Louisville production facility. With bodies added by third-party upfitters/body builders, these cab/chassis vehicles were used for freight distribution as well as heavy vocational uses, such as construction, snow plowing and refuse collection.

In the last few years of operation, the company also marketed light to medium-duty cab/chassis vehicles from corporate siblings, such as the 360 (a rebadged Mitsubishi Fuso Canter) and Bullet (a badge-engineered Dodge Ram Chassis Cab). These were typically outfitted with bodies suitable for use as lighter vocational trucks — those designed to perform jobs other than straight freight hauling — including fire trucks, garbage trucks, dump trucks, concrete mixers, tanker trucks, and snowplows.

Discontinuation

On October 14, 2008, Daimler Trucks North America announced a plan to discontinue the Sterling product line in an effort to consolidate its North American truck manufacturing operations under the Freightliner and Western Star brands. The company stopped taking orders for new trucks in January 2009, the St. Thomas manufacturing plant closed in March 2009, and the Portland, Oregon, plant was closed in June 2010.

From 1997 to 2009, Sterling produced several lines of trucks. Within Daimler-Benz, the Sterling product range was slotted between the Freightliner and Western Star product lines. Through much of its existence, the Sterling product range served as continuation of the second-generation Ford Louisville/AeroMax conventional product line (introduced in 1996).

Sterling 360 – a rebadged Mitsubishi Fuso Canter medium-duty cabover sold as the Fuso FE model in the U.S. and Canada and the Fuso Canter in Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

A line – set back

Acterra – (1999–2009) Class 5-8 medium-duty, using L-line cab with Freightliner Business Class chassis.