Four years ago, while driving through Banksville, Lee Aliberti spotted a car she knew her sports car enthusiast husband, David, just had to see.

Mr. Aliberti bought that car, a Sterling two-seater component car, sometimes also called a kit car. He became so obsessed with it, he now owns the company, Sterling Sports Cars, which supplies the parts to create the cars, popularized in the 1970s.

The Verona man showed the complete Sterling component car that he built himself at the Carlisle Import-Kit/Replicar Show, held recently in Carlisle, Cumberland County. It is a national show and the largest of its kind.

"People are very pleased to see the company is here on this coast," Mr. Aliberti said, noting that several of the component car companies are on the West Coast.

He plans to test the car at BeaveRun MotorSports Complex, a 400-acre multitrack motorsports facility in Big Beaver. The facility has expressed an interest in sponsoring races with the cars.

For the past year, he has been redesigning and supplying parts to owners of Sterlings from the '70s in the United States and other countries, such as the Virgin Islands and France.

"I'm going to be shipping a hood to a guy in Australia," he said. Mr. Aliberti said he had received several requests to install Targa roofs, which are removable hard tops.

As of last fall, Mr. Aliberti had found a supplier or manufacturer for every part of the car and can now provide the complete kit to build the original Sterling.

A small local company builds the frame, wheels and suspension, and he builds the body in his Apollo shop. The various parts manufacturers he has located nationwide supply everything else.

The cars are designed to fit on the original Volkswagen Beetle chassis, but they can work with a mid-engine tube chassis. The average final cost of the entire package usually is about $25,000, he said.

"The quality of these cars is so much better [than the kit cars of the '70s] because of the different manufacturing technology that goes into making them," said Rick Milne, president of the Sterling Club, an organization of owners.

Originally called the Nova, Sterlings were designed and built in 1971 in England by sculptor Richard Oakes and engineer Phil Sayers. Road and Track Magazine proclaimed it the "most beautiful kit car ever made" in 1972, and it is the only component car to have appeared on the cover of Car and Driver Magazine.

"Something about the shape of the car seems to drive people crazy," Mr. Aliberti said of the Sterling's low-slung body, usually painted a fiery red, flashy blue or bright yellow (think Hot Wheels).

Throughout the '70s and '80s, the cars sold in countries throughout the world and were given a different name in each. In the '90s the Sterling lost popularity, but in recent years, there has been a resurgence in interest, Mr. Milne said.

"There's a curiosity factor because they are somewhat rare," he said. At shows like the one in Carlisle, people don't realize they can still be manufactured.

The Sterling Club has 53 members and continues to grow each month, Mr. Milne said. There are about 1,000 of the cars in the United States and 5,000 worldwide.

"Anyone who knows me knows that I love cars," said Mr. Aliberti, a design engineer working for Leeds Promotional Products in New Kensington. Mr. Aliberti has been obsessed with cars and their engines since he was 2. And to help him get into Carnegie Mellon University's Industrial Design Program, he redesigned and built a 1979 Monte Carlo.

This summer, Mr. Aliberti plans to take his car from the 1970s and make it current with today's trends by bolting an electric motor to the transmission. It will be eco-friendly and sporty at the same time, he said. Instead of fiberglass resins, he will make a body out of soy-based and other composite materials.