
Replica Ferraris Raise Ire of Auto Maker - brownbat
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304617404579304421511930880
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SDGT
Maybe Ferrari should throw a little more money at their F1 team and not at
some small Spanish mechanic making kit cars in his garage if they're worried
about protecting the brand.

I really hope he can prove that he didn't affix the labels; I'd love to see
Ferrari and Audi (if actually involved with the Lambo side) eat shit on this
one.

The sad truth is that this poor guy will drown in legal fees even if he wins.

edit: to clarify: VW/Audi (owns Lamborghini) wasn't mentioned in the article
as being involved with Ferrari's suit, however they mentioned the guy made
Lambo replicas as well.

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cmsimike
I don't think it's a matter of money at Ferrari not being thrown at their F1
team. It's more a matter of not having Adrian Newey at the dawn of the newest
formula of F1 cars (2009).

Kimi supposedly got an apology from Montezemolo [0] for the way he was
treated/forced out of the team AFTER winning the championship for Ferrari,
which I think is one of the biggest signs that they're doing ALL they can to
win.

[0] [http://kimiraikkonenspace.com/2013/09/13/an-apology-from-
fer...](http://kimiraikkonenspace.com/2013/09/13/an-apology-from-ferrari-boss-
to-kimi/)

~~~
SDGT
Not really what I meant, but I certainly agree, although that apology came as
a contractual obligation for getting Kimi to sign for 2014.

I was more implying that the money spent on the lawsuit would be better spent
on the brand itself, whose pedigree is driven almost entirely by racing in F1
and GT.

I don't suppose I'd find you poking around /r/formula1?

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cmsimike
Ah sorry. I get so excited whenever someone mentions anything about F1 that I
jump directly talking about it

You definitely would find me on /r/formula1! I'm oh84s

jk same username on reddit as here - cmsimike. Keeps me honest :)

~~~
SDGT
> You definitely would find me on /r/formula1! I'm oh84s

I was so excited for a split second there!

same un on reddit as well :)

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AlexMuir
I have a friend with a Ferrari. He actually tells a lot of people it's just a
bodykit on a Toyota. It keeps people from thinking he's rich and/or a good
robbery target.

~~~
robmil
If you don't want to appear rich or a good robbery target, why buy a Ferrari
in the first place? Plenty of other rich people somehow manage to get by
without such extravagant displays of wealth.

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gress
Ferraris are fun to drive.

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TrainedMonkey
So are go carts.

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christoph
They are actually a bit more dangerous to drive on public roads though....

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nanidin
I'd imagine the fun parts of driving a ferrari aren't really legal on public
roads in the first place

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gress
It's a grey area. You can have a great deal of fun between 0 and the posted
speed limit. Acceleration, breaking and handling matter at any speed.

However a cop may judge that you are driving recklessly regardless of whether
you obey specific traffic laws.

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tptacek
Hasn't this been a "thing" for decades? When I was a little kid we'd get
supercar magazines and they'd be full of advertisements for Ferrari and
Lamborghini "kits".

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SDGT
The Pontiac Fiero is one of the most (in)famous cheap cars with Ferarri kits.
Hell, GM knocked off the Testarossa (or Berlinetta Boxer, depending on who is
arguing) for the vanilla body design.

~~~
DavidAdams
I had a Fiero back in 1987 when I was 16. It was really a crummy car,
reliability-wise, but so fun.

~~~
SDGT
Well yeah, you can't goose an iron duke and expect it to run fine. You know
the engine was running a quart lower because of a smaller oil pan? I had an 87
Celebrity with the same engine. That 2.5L 4 banger was great but slow.

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jevinskie
I don't think Mr. Aguilar was being entirely truthful when he said "We don't
like it [pretending the cars are Ferraris], and we think it actually devalues
our product, which is something else."

This is the title for the SRC Kit Cars website: "SRC-KIT CARS ferrari
lamborghini clasico hot rod piezas replica"

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TacticalCoder
I don't understand how people are willing to pay 40K EUR for a fake Ferrari
when you can have a real F430 for 70K EUR or a very nice 308 GTS for 40K (and
355 and 360 between these prices).

Sure, maintenance may be a bit lower but I can't even begin to imagine the
"resale value" of a fake one.

Due to the high volume of production of new Ferrari (compared to before),
prices are now free-falling and there are models losing 15K EUR per year. So
"fetching" a nice one, with low mileage, for a "reasonable price" (say between
60K and 80K) is not as far-fetched as most people think.

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blhack
Because you can't _drive_ a 308. It's 30 years old, and its engine is
constantly about to blow up (at least it feels that way)

And when it does, your 40k goes \ _poof\_ with it.

Source: been around somebody who owned one of these, he was much happier when
he sold it and bought a corvette.

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ynniv
Maybe Mr. Calero should be putting new Toyota engines in legit Ferrari bodies!

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jotm
He'd have better luck with Nissan engines :-) (but really, Toyota's sport
engines are quite good)

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te_platt
Would the design of a car body count as a type of intellectual property? I
understand that clothing designs cannot be copyrighted or patented. Also I
think house plans can be copyrighted but the look of the house itself cannot.
Adding a trademarked logo to the car would be clearly wrong but what kind
action could a manufacturer take against a kit vendor?

~~~
ds9
I think there are "industrial design" rights, but not sure whether they apply
to car designs. There would be an obvious problem of "how similar is too
similar" given that car types (sedan, wagon, coupe etc.) are broadly similar
across brands.

In this case the action was based on badges (a trademark violation)

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js2
The Ferraris used in Miami Vice were originally replicas, as Ferrari
originally declined a request from the show for cars. After a couple seasons,
Ferrari sued the folks making the replicas and offered two cars to the show as
long as the replicas be destroyed.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cars_in_Miami_Vice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cars_in_Miami_Vice)

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TallGuyShort
"Ferrari executives ... had never heard of the Spanish car mechanic and didn't
know until recently what he was up to... Ferrari alerted Spanish police, who
raided ... and shut him down in July, seizing 17 replica Ferraris and two
replica Aston Martins."

... sounds like a measured response. Kind of like suing a person for tens of
thousands of dollars for downloading a few MP3s.

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zokier
> Kind of like suing a person for tens of thousands of dollars for downloading
> a few MP3s.

With 13 employees and 19 cars in waiting, this doesn't sound such a small-
scale operation as you seem to imply. How many Ferraris were sold in his area
of operation at the time?

~~~
SDGT
I don't know of a single prospective Ferrari buyer that would even give the
thought of buying a Toyota kit car instead a microsecond of time. They are
totally different demographics, in fact I'd say there a high chance of a real
Ferrari owner to purchase one of these as a novelty.

People that buy a Ferrari are in it only for the pedigree, otherwise they'd
actually buy a good supercar like a Noble or McClaren.

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thret
"Judge Ronald S.W. Lew asserted that Gotham Garage can't simply manufacture
Batmobiles as depicted in Batman movies, without the consent of Warner Bros.,
the producer of the Batman franchise."

If Warner Bros. had no intention of producing their own Batmobiles, then they
were really unfair to fans. Why wouldn't they just ask for royalties from the
cars and let him be?

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DanBC
They don't want "FAMILY KILLED IN BATMOBILE" headlines.

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beachstartup
the problem with these kit cars are the wheelbase dimensions are all wrong, so
they look like little scrunched-up midget versions of the real thing. real
sports cars are long, and wide, and low.

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jusben1369
Oh THAT"S the problem ;)

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beachstartup
well, yeah. they would look fine and fool quite a few car enthusiasts (from
the outside, anyway) if the dimensions were right.

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DanBC
The reaction to this article is interesting. Compare it to the reaction of
"copied" icons, which sometimes only look vaguely similar and are not being
sold to the public but are used to dress a website.

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jotm
Oh man, 3D printing is gonna piss off auto makers so badly in the near future!

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epynonymous
looks nothing like a ferrari

