Sterte garage is a small family business in the centre of Poole,
Dorset. For over 50 years we have been a Father and Son business.
We pride ourselves in our independent views and knowledge, friendly
customer service and reasonable pricing.
A brief history of the garage (researched by Ant).
The garage has been at this site in Poole for 100+ years and before
cars existed; the original owners were probably blacksmiths fixing
up horses, and the carts they pulled, as a service to the local
community. The garage has changed very little over the years; we
still service the local community but please don’t bring any
horses to us as we have moved on, just as our transport has over
the last Century!
The
history of the garage before the 1940’s is, sadly, a little
sketchy so I can’t fill you in on the whole story. In the
1940's, however, the garage was sold to Mr Gillard who would keep
the business in his family for a further 3 generations, right up
to 2002 in fact. The story of how he aquired it goes something like
this - during the Second World War Poole Harbour was bombed by the
Luftwaffe and the owner of the garage was worried that next time
the area was bombed the garage would be hit, so he sold for a meager
sum, to a man by the name of Gillard. This risky property investment
gamble paid off as Poole was never bombed again. The business then
stayed with the Gillard family until his grandson, David, sold to
us. Although retired David still contributes to the community and
now serves on Poole Council. We like to think that we have kept
to the tradition of being a family business offering friendly service
and helping the community as much as possible. We work to provide
a traditional service that we think the corporate, frequently over
stretched, Main Dealers and Garage Chains cannot match.
A brief History of The Flemings @ Sterte Garage.
My
father Nick has been working on cars for as far back as I can remember.
He started working out of the garage at home, and in 1989 he moved
to a garage in Parkstone, near Poole. This business was called French
Car Company and he ran it with my Uncle Giles. The name gives you
a clue to the kind of thing we did at the garage, predominately
working on French cars that were unusual and difficult to work on
- unlike a lot of the modern mass produced French machinery. In
particular he worked on the Citroens with hydraulic suspension and
brakes such as the DS, CX, GS, XM, BX and Xantia. We also specialised
in the most individual of all of the French cars - the 2CV and Dyane
. In 1998 I started working for the Company as a mere Dogs Body
but eventually took over most of the day-to-day running. In 2001
we changed the name of the company to Fleming Car Co as we felt
that the French Car Co name was restricting our business because
potential customers thought we only worked on French cars. The reality
was, however, that although we had specialist knowledge with French
cars, we worked on all types of car ranging from Ford to Honda to
Jaguar - anything, in fact, our customers brought us including Ferraris
and Aston Martins! In 2001 we also decided that to survive we must
find a garage to buy rather than rent. Luckily we found Sterte Garage,
very close to our Ashley Road site, which had been managed along
similiar lines and was a traditional family owned firm. In 2002
we moved to Sterte Garage and began to shift our emphasis towards
Japanese machinery on the car sales side. We now service and repair
all of the Japanese makes and understand their unique ways! To find
out a little more about why we chose Japanese cars read the section
about me (Anthony).
Nick Fleming – Company owner.
My
father Nick is a generous and friendly guy. Very honest (too honest
sometimes!!) and always interested in making money without ripping
people off - always being as fair as possible. He was born in 1953
in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland. He has led a successful
life (although will probably not admit that!) and been involved
in various businesses including a wholefoods shop in Glasgow called
Grassroots which was run as a worker co-operative. He also founded
Green City Wholefoods which distributed food around Scotland and
both Co-operatives are still in business. Our family, including
my Mum, Phillida and younger brother, Hamish, moved from Scotland
to the New Forest in1983 and lived next door to my grandmother.
Nick built her a large garage and for a few years used it as his
workshop for repairing cars including the hydraulic Citroens he
is passionate about. He eventually moved to a garage premises in
New Milton, near to our house. In 1989 he expanded and moved to
the garage on Ashley Road in Parkstone near Poole in Dorset….
…the rest, as they say, is history. Nick is not as passionate
about the Japanese machinery as I, but he appreciates the true qualities
of Japanese machinery - the build quality, value for money, reliability
and incredible efficient performance. He has whole-heartedly supported
me in introducing Japanese performance cars as the core of our business.
Nick's other passions are my Mum (they have been married for 28
years), boats and music.
Anthony Fleming – manager.
Born
in Glasgow in 1979 I am a proud Scot although I don’t sound
it, due to a ‘BBC’ accent. After a disillusioning school career at Tiptoe Primary and Priestlands
Comprehensive I went to Brockenhurst College to study A levels but
decided not to go to University and to get a job instead. After
a few months doing absolutely nothing and generally bumming about
my Aunt Fiona persuaded me to ‘come and do some work experience’
at my Dads' garage. 10 years later I am still at the garage so I
guess my work experience hasn’t ended yet! I now run the day
to day operations of the garage as a team with my father. In June 2006 I got married and I am very happy to say that I now have a daughter (she was born in December 2006).
I have always been a fan of fast cars, in the mid 90’s I was
a SERIOUS F1 enthusiast and I religiously watched any motorsport
that I could. When I was 17 I got my first car, a Citroen GSA. It
was a 1300 flat four engine (a little like a Subaru’s but
much slower lol) I loved it, a few months later I smashed it to
bits in 1 of 2 nasty ‘learning experience’ accidents
that I have had.
After
a string of Citroens I got my first ‘performance’ car.
It was a 1985 Citroen Visa GTi, a little hot hatch with a 1.6 fuel
injection engine (same engine as 205 GTi) it was a real banger,
but gave me the car modifying bug. I decided that what was important
was the cars' performance, not big wheels or bodykits, but the way
the car went. Sadly I was onto a loser as dynamically the Visa was
about as effective a ‘sports car’ as a wheel barrow.
I built a custom free flow exhaust and fitted it to the car and
fitted a special high lift cam, I also fitted an induction kit and
expensive Yokohama tyres for maximum grip. What I had was a ‘luke
warm’ performance car that could understeer better than The
Titanic. At the time I thought it was awesome, however, I was SEVERELY
deluded. Luckily for me a short while later the car met its maker
in a incident involving a tree and 8ft off ground mid air action.
It was totaled and I decided to change to a totally different type
of car.
My
love affair with Japanese engineering had just began. Restricted
to a 1.6 I bought a Honda Integra ZXi Japanese Import – a
1991 car it was a front wheel drive, 16v coupe with 130bhp. I absolutely
loved it. The entire time I had the car NOTHING went wrong with
it. I covered loads of miles, it handled in a way that taught me
a lot about front wheel drive cars and I loved the rev happy engine.
Around that time a car called the Honda Integra type R had come
out in the UK - it was my dream car, and I was determined to own
one one day. It was everything I loved about my Honda but so much
more, but sadly I couldn’t afford one yet. A year or so after
buying the Honda I decided I wanted more power. My choice - a Revision
2 MR2 turbo with some nice little modifications. This was my first
experience with turbo charging and rear wheel drive, but what a
shock to my system the fuel bills were!!! I couldn’t believe
how much fuel it used. That car taught me a lot about Japanese cars
and tuning, after I had finished with it was pushing out a reasonable
280bhp. After a year of ownership I wanted something that was a
little bit more of a Drivers car, something that wasn’t just
fast but also efficient, reliable and a joy to drive. It had to
be the Integra type R.
In
2001 I bought the Integra and didn’t look back - a car so
fast, yet reliable and economical with the best front wheel drive
handling I have ever experienced! This is still, to this day, one
of the best cars I have ever owned. I have many fond memories of
this car but after a year and a half I wanted something with turbo
power. By this point I was a Japanese car nut - I wouldn’t
have anything that wasn’t produced by the Japs. The opportunity
to start importing cars came up and I grabbed it by the horns, what
better way than to start importing than with a car I had dribbled
over for years. The Nissan Skyline GTR.
My
first was a Mines tuned R32 GTR producing 400bhp; I loved it and
now about 10 GTR’s later you could say I am hooked on them.
I have now owned many Japanese sports cars, my favorites being the
Mazda RX7, Nissan Skyline GTR & Toyota Supra. I have gained
much knowledge on the cars which helps me to deal with customers
better as an enthusiast speaking to enthusiasts. I attend many shows
during the year and you would be unlucky not to catch me on one
of the Jap car web forums at least once a day. I feel privileged
to be able to work in a field that interests me deeply.
Ant.
For anyone who might like to know about other aspects of Ant's
life. He is a bass baritone and has sung with the Bournemouth
Symphony Choir - that's a Top Choir! - Ed.
The
history of the garage before the 1940’s is, sadly, a little
sketchy so I can’t fill you in on the whole story. In the
1940's, however, the garage was sold to Mr Gillard who would keep
the business in his family for a further 3 generations, right up
to 2002 in fact. The story of how he aquired it goes something like
this - during the Second World War Poole Harbour was bombed by the
Luftwaffe and the owner of the garage was worried that next time
the area was bombed the garage would be hit, so he sold for a meager
sum, to a man by the name of Gillard. This risky property investment
gamble paid off as Poole was never bombed again. The business then
stayed with the Gillard family until his grandson, David, sold to
us. Although retired David still contributes to the community and
now serves on Poole Council. We like to think that we have kept
to the tradition of being a family business offering friendly service
and helping the community as much as possible. We work to provide
a traditional service that we think the corporate, frequently over
stretched, Main Dealers and Garage Chains cannot match.
My
father Nick has been working on cars for as far back as I can remember.
He started working out of the garage at home, and in 1989 he moved
to a garage in Parkstone, near Poole. This business was called French
Car Company and he ran it with my Uncle Giles. The name gives you
a clue to the kind of thing we did at the garage, predominately
working on French cars that were unusual and difficult to work on
- unlike a lot of the modern mass produced French machinery. In
particular he worked on the Citroens with hydraulic suspension and
brakes such as the DS, CX, GS, XM, BX and Xantia. We also specialised
in the most individual of all of the French cars - the 2CV and Dyane
. In 1998 I started working for the Company as a mere Dogs Body
but eventually took over most of the day-to-day running. In 2001
we changed the name of the company to Fleming Car Co as we felt
that the French Car Co name was restricting our business because
potential customers thought we only worked on French cars. The reality
was, however, that although we had specialist knowledge with French
cars, we worked on all types of car ranging from Ford to Honda to
Jaguar - anything, in fact, our customers brought us including Ferraris
and Aston Martins! In 2001 we also decided that to survive we must
find a garage to buy rather than rent. Luckily we found Sterte Garage,
very close to our Ashley Road site, which had been managed along
similiar lines and was a traditional family owned firm. In 2002
we moved to Sterte Garage and began to shift our emphasis towards
Japanese machinery on the car sales side. We now service and repair
all of the Japanese makes and understand their unique ways! To find
out a little more about why we chose Japanese cars read the section
about me (Anthony).
My
father Nick is a generous and friendly guy. Very honest (too honest
sometimes!!) and always interested in making money without ripping
people off - always being as fair as possible. He was born in 1953
in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland. He has led a successful
life (although will probably not admit that!) and been involved
in various businesses including a wholefoods shop in Glasgow called
Grassroots which was run as a worker co-operative. He also founded
Green City Wholefoods which distributed food around Scotland and
both Co-operatives are still in business. Our family, including
my Mum, Phillida and younger brother, Hamish, moved from Scotland
to the New Forest in1983 and lived next door to my grandmother.
Nick built her a large garage and for a few years used it as his
workshop for repairing cars including the hydraulic Citroens he
is passionate about. He eventually moved to a garage premises in
New Milton, near to our house. In 1989 he expanded and moved to
the garage on Ashley Road in Parkstone near Poole in Dorset….
…the rest, as they say, is history. Nick is not as passionate
about the Japanese machinery as I, but he appreciates the true qualities
of Japanese machinery - the build quality, value for money, reliability
and incredible efficient performance. He has whole-heartedly supported
me in introducing Japanese performance cars as the core of our business.
Born
in Glasgow in 1979 I am a proud Scot although I don’t sound
it, due to a ‘BBC’ accent. After a disillusioning school career at Tiptoe Primary and Priestlands
Comprehensive I went to Brockenhurst College to study A levels but
decided not to go to University and to get a job instead. After
a few months doing absolutely nothing and generally bumming about
my Aunt Fiona persuaded me to ‘come and do some work experience’
at my Dads' garage. 10 years later I am still at the garage so I
guess my work experience hasn’t ended yet! I now run the day
to day operations of the garage as a team with my father. In June 2006 I got married and I am very happy to say that I now have a daughter (she was born in December 2006).
After
a string of Citroens I got my first ‘performance’ car.
It was a 1985 Citroen Visa GTi, a little hot hatch with a 1.6 fuel
injection engine (same engine as 205 GTi) it was a real banger,
but gave me the car modifying bug. I decided that what was important
was the cars' performance, not big wheels or bodykits, but the way
the car went. Sadly I was onto a loser as dynamically the Visa was
about as effective a ‘sports car’ as a wheel barrow.
I built a custom free flow exhaust and fitted it to the car and
fitted a special high lift cam, I also fitted an induction kit and
expensive Yokohama tyres for maximum grip. What I had was a ‘luke
warm’ performance car that could understeer better than The
Titanic. At the time I thought it was awesome, however, I was SEVERELY
deluded. Luckily for me a short while later the car met its maker
in a incident involving a tree and 8ft off ground mid air action.
It was totaled and I decided to change to a totally different type
of car. 
My
love affair with Japanese engineering had just began. Restricted
to a 1.6 I bought a Honda Integra ZXi Japanese Import – a
1991 car it was a front wheel drive, 16v coupe with 130bhp. I absolutely
loved it. The entire time I had the car NOTHING went wrong with
it. I covered loads of miles, it handled in a way that taught me
a lot about front wheel drive cars and I loved the rev happy engine.
Around that time a car called the Honda Integra type R had come
out in the UK - it was my dream car, and I was determined to own
one one day. It was everything I loved about my Honda but so much
more, but sadly I couldn’t afford one yet. A year or so after
buying the Honda I decided I wanted more power. My choice - a Revision
2 MR2 turbo with some nice little modifications. This was my first
experience with turbo charging and rear wheel drive, but what a
shock to my system the fuel bills were!!! I couldn’t believe
how much fuel it used. That car taught me a lot about Japanese cars
and tuning, after I had finished with it was pushing out a reasonable
280bhp. After a year of ownership I wanted something that was a
little bit more of a Drivers car, something that wasn’t just
fast but also efficient, reliable and a joy to drive. It had to
be the Integra type R.
In
2001 I bought the Integra and didn’t look back - a car so
fast, yet reliable and economical with the best front wheel drive
handling I have ever experienced! This is still, to this day, one
of the best cars I have ever owned. I have many fond memories of
this car but after a year and a half I wanted something with turbo
power. By this point I was a Japanese car nut - I wouldn’t
have anything that wasn’t produced by the Japs. The opportunity
to start importing cars came up and I grabbed it by the horns, what
better way than to start importing than with a car I had dribbled
over for years. The Nissan Skyline GTR. 
My
first was a Mines tuned R32 GTR producing 400bhp; I loved it and
now about 10 GTR’s later you could say I am hooked on them.
I have now owned many Japanese sports cars, my favorites being the
Mazda RX7, Nissan Skyline GTR & Toyota Supra. I have gained
much knowledge on the cars which helps me to deal with customers
better as an enthusiast speaking to enthusiasts. I attend many shows
during the year and you would be unlucky not to catch me on one
of the Jap car web forums at least once a day. I feel privileged
to be able to work in a field that interests me deeply.