Typical Daily Mail spin on things, I apologise in advance;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4217380/Spanish-police-bust-counterfeit-Ferrari-manufacturing-scam.html
It just seems odd to me, they're selling pretty good quality replicas using a well known bodykit supplier, selling them at the expected prices
for ready-built reps. Unless they are genuinely trying to sell them as the real thing, I don't see the issue here.
quote:
The cars were all supplied with fake registration documents.
In addition, police found a fully equipped cannabis farm with 950 pots.
quote:
Originally posted by theduck
quote:
The cars were all supplied with fake registration documents.
In addition, police found a fully equipped cannabis farm with 950 pots.
I'd say so, yes.
I've heard of companies being prosecuted before for copyright issues with replica ferrari kits for mr2s.
I highly doubt these cars were being flogged as genuine cars though as the mail says. Anyone dumb enough to buy one for £15k instead of 150k deserves
to be ripped off. Especially when they see the genuine peugeot engine....
Deja vu!
A fool and his money will easily be parted
I'd take the report with a very large portion of scepticism... The Daily Fail isn't known for the accuracy and honesty of its
reporting...
Daily Mail-o-matic
Id say you would have to be pretty thick to not realise it was a proper 355 or 430 with a Toyota 2.0 in it.
If you were genuinely in the market for one, any serious person would do their homework and check the car out.
My guess is that this is more to do with copyright than 'passing off' (selling a fake as the real thing). Some European countries get quite excited about copyright issues...
Ferrari in particular are known to be very protective over their IP, I wouldn't be surprised if they instigated this.
An example:
http://jalopnik.com/ferrari-sent-deadmau5-a-cease-and-desi
st-about-his-purr-1627640534
There was also a recent example of a kit Merc SLR (the original Mille Millia one) being crushed.
Spain and Italy seem to be the most strict in terms of IP/Copyright laws, not sure how they would react to a seven/cobra but the current cars, top end
sports cars or cars with manufacturers still in existence seem to attract the most attention.
£35,000 isn't TOO far fetched for an older Ferrari, but is probably cheap enough to raise suspicions. It sounds like they were selling them online, so someone wires the money over, gets forged registration documents, then picks up their gen-yoo-wine FWD v6 Ferrari only to find the sellers have scarpered with their money. I think the crime isn't that they're selling replicas but that they're passing them off as real.
If they were going to do that why bother building the fake car? Why not just show them a real one, take the money and never give them a car? Im
guessing but I think the fake Vehicle IDs is more likely a way to get around the kit car rules or because the donors were stolen because actually
building the fake car that works and is clearly a fake makes no sense.
[Edited on 18/2/17 by morcus]