Sterling is a brilliant business car who runs Rust-eze Racing Center—one of the most successful elite training facilities in the country. Despite his dapper appearance and obvious wealth, Sterling comes across as unassuming and laid back. But business is business, and Sterling is driven to ensure all of his investments pay off.[2]
Personality[]
Sterling is mean, arrogant, angry, greedy and strict. He also has no real loyalty toward those who race for him and cares only that they can win and if he feels they are too slow and or past their prime he will refuse to race them unlike Tex and Rusty and Dusty who actually care about their racers.
Nathan Fillion described him as a character who does not try to get people to think he is "charming": "Anytime you say something about a quality of a character that's 'charming,' I think a lot of people make the mistake and think of skeevy, but charming is someone who admires you, can disarm you, and gain your trust. He's not being interesting, he's being interested. He's not, 'Hey there, I'm great,' which is not charming. He's 'Hey there, you're great.'"[3]
Physical Appearance[]
Sterling is painted silver, and has blue eyes. According to Brian Fee, Sterling's design was inspired by European cars from the 1960s, as he quoted: "They're incredibly stylish, with almost a dainty quality. Small, kind of sporty, extremely confident."[3]
Role in the film[]
Sterling first appears in the Rust-eze Racing Center, talking about Lightning McQueen's retirement from his racing career, and introduces McQueen to an area with merchandise based on him and his trainer, Cruz Ramirez.
He tries to talk Lightning out of racing by saying that his racing days are numbered, but Lightning refuses. Then he offers him a deal: if Lightning cannot win the Florida 500, then he would be forced to retire but if Lightning wins, he decides when he's done racing. By the time the Florida 500 came, Sterling was offended that Cruz was not only present, but was insisted by McQueen to take his racing spot as long as she wore the same "95" number.
By the time she won, Sterling persuaded Cruz to be a racer that would represent him, but realized that Rust-eze was already bought by Tex Dinoco.
Trivia[]
Sterling has a picture of what looks like Miles Axlerod, the main antagonist of Cars 2, in his office, although it was never confirmed if Sterling and Axelrod are connected in some way.
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