Changing the colour on a Ferrari ? Permission ?

[Ian Lanc]

Hi guys,

Not the best place to ask this crazy question but back in the late 1980's a friend had a Ferrari and wanted to change the colour of his 308 GTB from red to black and he was told he would have to get permission from Ferrari themselves in order for him to legally respray his car! Anyone know if there was any truth in this ? I know you can respray any car and then notify DVLA of the colour change but did Ferrari have rights to what colour the car was originally.

I've searched around and can't find anything!

[Russ]

I remember a company making a Ferrari into a stretch limo and Ferrari sued them!

googling 'rules for owning a ferrari' brings up some interesting reading! After driving an F430 I can understand why.

[hywelkidd]

Gas Monkey resprayed an F40 a few years back and I don't recall them saying anything about needing permission from Ferrari.

Although on the flip side, Ferrari certainly weren't happy about Deadmau5's Nyan Cat wrapped 458 (although that one is understandable).

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Joss max]

Ferrari are red. Possibly a trade mark thing ?

[BOF]

a) IANAL

b) I'm still not a lawyer

c) Don't touch any of their logos, etc. They will have something like trademark protection. That said, you could probably remove them and they would have difficulty getting much legal leverage against you (but see below), but modify them, and you are in deep stuff (legally, of course).

d) They could choose to argue that some Ferrari or another is so iconic that it constitutes an object which, of and by itself, has something like copyright protection. I think this is probably a difficult legal argument to make, but if they were successful in that, they have an action against you if you modify it from how it shipped from the factory. Not at all convinced that if you changed it from one standard factory colour to another, they would be successful against that (ie, it still looked exactly like a car that they shipped from their factory just a different car that they shipped from their factory from the one that you bought; I can't see how that would be degrading the brand value) but they'd probably try.

(Colours can, of course, be copyrighted, but that protection would come in if you tried to use a Ferrari colour for something else; there is a danger though if you changed most of the colour that they could say 'it isn't as it left the factory any more, and is therefore not any longer a Ferrari, and therefore you have no rght to use that bit of Ferrari colour on it. Particularly if that were in a place that no one could see, you could consider that to be sneaky.)

e) The large print giveth and the small print taketh away. Read the small print of any conditions imposed on you at the time that you purchased it. Don't believe that there is anything there that they might choose not to enforce, even if it is the most idiotic condition that you have ever seen.

f) If you bought your Ferrari from another Ferrari owner (ie, second hand) and they didn't impose on you some conditions that their contract sad that they should have, imagine all sorts of stuff, largely involving enriching lawyers, taking place. The worst I can see is that they may be able to get your purchase of the Ferrari from the previous owner declared invalid, but that's pretty bad, particularly if you like Ferraris.

In summary, don't make the mistake of thinking that they are not totally up themselves. That would be entirely wrong.
 

[laumk7]

2 hours ago, Joss max said:

Ferrari are red. Possibly a trade mark thing ?

Aren't Chris Evans' Ferrari white? 

[Turvey]

Paint it whatever colour you want! Even pink if you want! 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3411317/Amber-Rose-showcases-hourglass-figure-waist-trainer-arrives-workout-pink-Ferrari.html

 

But Ferrari won't supply you with one......allegedly. 

 

http://www.executivestyle.com.au/why-pink-ferraris-are-officially-off-limits-1mdj0v

[GMX]

It seems Justin Bieber is a serial Ferrari change of colourist  His Ferrari 458 resprayed at least three times, from black to white and then to ice blue, including having the badges done

[Joss max]

3 hours ago, laumk7 said:

Aren't Chris Evans' Ferrari white? 

Who ?

[laumk7]

44 minutes ago, Joss max said:

Who ?

Oh I'd LOVE to be in the position of not knowing who the ginger turnip (for want of a better more appropriate word) was. Ex new top gear ruiner and tezza wogans rubbish replacement on radio 2

[jmurray01]

2 hours ago, laumk7 said:

Oh I'd LOVE to be in the position of not knowing who the ginger turnip (for want of a better more appropriate word) was. Ex new top gear ruiner and tezza wogans rubbish replacement on radio 2

Hear hear!