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Fate of replicas

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M

mikephillips

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Just happened to stumble across a story about how Ferrari this last summer got the 250 GTO declared in Italy a work of art that cannot be duplicated. According to the article they will be requesting law enforcement to seize and destroy replicas and would investigate doing this world wide. To me if they are successful, will other manufacturers try to follow? Could Jaguar go after C and D type replica makers and cars? Would Shelby or Ford go after Cobra and GT40 replicas. Don't think it'll affect much those dead names that may or may not be owned, other than perhaps some sort of licensing, but it is an interesting path they may be headed down.


[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2019/06/27/italian-court-rules-ferrari-250-gto-a-work-of-art?sf104691017=1

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Shelby already had a long-term battle with the Cobra replica people: https://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/22/shelby-loses-lawsuit-against-factory-five-racing/ Mercedes has had a 300 SL reproduction destroyed: https://media.daimler.com/marsMedia...cedes-Benz-300-SL-destroyed.xhtml?oid=9917643 Other replica manufacturers will pay a licensing fee to the original builder. Ferrari, in particular, has a very aggressive copyright infringement department that will seek out misuse of their prancing horse http://www.lastopenroad.com/burtsblog12.html and even Volvo went after the "Prancing Moose" design: https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2018/...reator-sent-cease-and-desist-letter-by-volvo/ The design of a vehicle is known as "trade dress" and while some of these companies would no doubt like to collect some licensing fees for their work, they must also defend their designs in order to keep the copyright/trade dress protections in force.
 
How many MG TD, Healey and Bugatti type 35 replicas are out there? I once visited a small factory in Toronto that was turning out these Bugattis.
 
pdplot said:
How many MG TD, Healey and Bugatti type 35 replicas are out there? I once visited a small factory in Toronto that was turning out these Bugattis.
Click to expand...

I think some of these replicas existed because the owners of the original rights to the cars went out of business or were too small to spend the money to hire lawyers to chase down the replica builders. Bugatti was out of the picture for a number of years and I doubt they were too concerned about a VW based fiberglass copy of the Type 35. One of the best replicas, though, is the Pur Sang type 35, but it appears Bugatti has left them alone: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markew...ccessful-racing-car-of-all-time/#4946efc04c76
 
Messing with Ferrari is a big NO NO!
We where building 288 GTO replicas and they came after us.
All badging could not be placed on the car by us.
They then would not sell a genuine badge without a serial number.
 
DavidApp said:
Will this guy be in trouble?

David

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMQma4xH3lk
Click to expand...

Don't know that they are especially interested in a one off - more those who plan to sell replicas.

their cautionary tale - they lost the name Testarossa in Germany.

https://united-kingdom.taylorwessin...errari-loses-testarossa-trade-mark-in-germany

OTOH Allard 'replicas' are accepted by the registry as real Allards.

https://www.allardj2x.com/allard-j2x-mk3-british-competition-roadster-race-car-replica/
 
The Lightweight E type I was thinking about was one of 6 built by Jaguar using the 6 serial number they had on the books but had never been used. They are going to a select group of customers. They are in the 1,500,000 pound range.

During the video the film maker went around London and spoke to several high end car places asking what they thought of them. One place said with a very haughty voice "Well we would not allow them at our shows as they have no providence". Another place said we can always find appropriate venues for these cars. Almost like a dating service for car shows.

Jaguar were making at least twice as many bonnets as they needed because they had such a hard tine finding the press tooling. It was located in some long forgotten store area.

Still looking for the video.

David
 
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