Photo: Andrei Nedelea for autoevolution
Not long ago, the automotive world was taken by storm thanks to the announcement that Ferrari's old-school way of doing business will stop, Maranello will finally cave in and jump on the very lucrative SUV bandwagon with its own product.
Just take a deep breath and think about it for a minute. I know most Ferrari purists already loathe the idea of a Ferrari SUV, but Ferrari isn't developing the new model for them, in case you haven't noticed.
No, Ferrari is simply surfing the waves of its own smashing success story and only wants to branch out into the most profitable niches it can find. Heck, the power of the Ferrari brand is so great that its Scuderia motorsport division is the only Formula 1 team that gets money just for being part of the F1 roster each year, irrespective of the number of race wins.
It's like a regular blue-collar Joe that gets so much love from his bosses that he gets a salary just for showing up at work and punching the card, not for the actual work he does.
The Italian carmaker has such a massive brand cachet that it could probably sell used toilet paper and still make a profit, but its executives certainly know where to diverge Ferrari's investments. The Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is definitely one of such investments, and it really doesn't matter what Il Commendatore would have thought of it, the amusement park has been printing money ever since it went live in 2010 and it's only the first of many other such establishments.
Pretty much every road car that features the Cavallino Rampante symbol is sold with a net profit that would allow its buyer to also get a well-equipped Mercedes-Benz C-Class or a similar top-of-the-range BMW 3 Series alongside the Ferrari. Yes, you've read that correctly. Back in 2018, a study conducted by a German automotive research center concluded that Ferrari makes an average of about $80,000 per each car sold in EBIT profit.
To have such brand power at its discretion doesn't come without drawbacks, though, and Ferrari's lawyers certainly know that. The number of lawsuits or various copyright matters involving the Maranello sports car brand has been at its highest and it's continuously increasing each year.
There is simply no easier or more efficient way of protecting a brand than suing everyone and everything that's disturbing the cachet or even remotely trying to cash in on the Prancing Horse's massive brand strength.
That said, Ferrari's choice of going to litigation sometimes takes a turn for the truly unusual in some of these alleged copyright infringement cases. Some of you may remember Cameron Glickenhaus' gorgeous Pininfarina P4/5, which was a re-bodied Ferrari Enzo made without first consulting Ferrari and it almost didn't get to feature the Ferrari shield because of it.
Another weird example is electronic music producer Deadmau5, who got a cease and desist letter in 2014 over his Purrari, which was a Ferrari 458 Italia fitted with custom badges and a vinyl tribute to the Nyan Cat. Since the custom badges were an amusing Doppelganger take on the Prancing Horse and Ferrari logo, Maranello was definitely not pleased and saw fit to put an end to the mockery as soon as possible.
Last year, fashion designer Philipp Plein also got a cease and desist letter from Ferrari's lawyers, this time for a couple of Instagram posts that seemed to promote some of his gaudy sneaker designs using a similarly colored Ferrari 812 Superfast and a bunch of scantily-clad girls. The 812 Superfast was one of the four Ferraris he had owned until that point, by the way, so he was obviously frustrated about the letter, to say the least.
The most recent scandal involving copyrighted Ferrari material is apparently a lawsuit against a small Italian charity, of all things, which is now facing an uphill legal battle concerning the commercial use of the word “Purosangue.”
The Purosangue Foundation is a non-profit charity that registered the Italian word for “thoroughbred” (literal translation is “pure blood”) for clothing and other products as early as 2013.
Coincidentally, Ferrari has chosen the same word for naming its first SUV, the Purosangue, which is currently in development and should be unveiled officially by the end of 2021. The Purosangue foundation apparently tried to first enter talks with the carmaker but no agreement could be reached concerning the use of the Purosangue name, so Ferrari saw fit to enter litigation.
The lawsuit claims that the trademark registration should be taken from the charity because of a lack of use for the past years, despite the charity using it even in a partnership with Adidas, which saw branded sneakers and clothes emerge from the cooperation.
Ferrari obviously wants to eventually make t-shirts, keychains and baseball caps featuring its upcoming Purosangue crossover, so it probably won't back down from the lawsuit until it gets the trademark in full.
The litigation is bound to upset a lot of people, seeing that it mostly sounds like a David versus Goliath battle that's definitely unfair for the not-for-profit foundation. That being said, the lawsuit is in line with Ferrari's way of upholding its prestigious name in recent years and we should probably look at the much bigger picture.
It definitely doesn't mean that I agree with the big fish eating the little fish just to ensure its own survival mentality, though, as there are countless other ways for Ferrari and the Purosangue Foundation to co-exist.
Never mind Ferrari making an SUV, I can somewhat understand it even I don't fully agree with it, but going after the little guy and transforming from a company that makes road cars just to fund its racing activities to a ruthless corporation is a very sure way to alienate Ferrari aficionados. Sure, a lioness killing to protect its cubs is one thing, but destroying for the sake of destruction is another. There's nothing thoroughbred about corporations.
No, Ferrari is simply surfing the waves of its own smashing success story and only wants to branch out into the most profitable niches it can find. Heck, the power of the Ferrari brand is so great that its Scuderia motorsport division is the only Formula 1 team that gets money just for being part of the F1 roster each year, irrespective of the number of race wins.
It's like a regular blue-collar Joe that gets so much love from his bosses that he gets a salary just for showing up at work and punching the card, not for the actual work he does.
The Italian carmaker has such a massive brand cachet that it could probably sell used toilet paper and still make a profit, but its executives certainly know where to diverge Ferrari's investments. The Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is definitely one of such investments, and it really doesn't matter what Il Commendatore would have thought of it, the amusement park has been printing money ever since it went live in 2010 and it's only the first of many other such establishments.
Pretty much every road car that features the Cavallino Rampante symbol is sold with a net profit that would allow its buyer to also get a well-equipped Mercedes-Benz C-Class or a similar top-of-the-range BMW 3 Series alongside the Ferrari. Yes, you've read that correctly. Back in 2018, a study conducted by a German automotive research center concluded that Ferrari makes an average of about $80,000 per each car sold in EBIT profit.
To have such brand power at its discretion doesn't come without drawbacks, though, and Ferrari's lawyers certainly know that. The number of lawsuits or various copyright matters involving the Maranello sports car brand has been at its highest and it's continuously increasing each year.
There is simply no easier or more efficient way of protecting a brand than suing everyone and everything that's disturbing the cachet or even remotely trying to cash in on the Prancing Horse's massive brand strength.
That said, Ferrari's choice of going to litigation sometimes takes a turn for the truly unusual in some of these alleged copyright infringement cases. Some of you may remember Cameron Glickenhaus' gorgeous Pininfarina P4/5, which was a re-bodied Ferrari Enzo made without first consulting Ferrari and it almost didn't get to feature the Ferrari shield because of it.
Another weird example is electronic music producer Deadmau5, who got a cease and desist letter in 2014 over his Purrari, which was a Ferrari 458 Italia fitted with custom badges and a vinyl tribute to the Nyan Cat. Since the custom badges were an amusing Doppelganger take on the Prancing Horse and Ferrari logo, Maranello was definitely not pleased and saw fit to put an end to the mockery as soon as possible.
Last year, fashion designer Philipp Plein also got a cease and desist letter from Ferrari's lawyers, this time for a couple of Instagram posts that seemed to promote some of his gaudy sneaker designs using a similarly colored Ferrari 812 Superfast and a bunch of scantily-clad girls. The 812 Superfast was one of the four Ferraris he had owned until that point, by the way, so he was obviously frustrated about the letter, to say the least.
The most recent scandal involving copyrighted Ferrari material is apparently a lawsuit against a small Italian charity, of all things, which is now facing an uphill legal battle concerning the commercial use of the word “Purosangue.”
The Purosangue Foundation is a non-profit charity that registered the Italian word for “thoroughbred” (literal translation is “pure blood”) for clothing and other products as early as 2013.
Coincidentally, Ferrari has chosen the same word for naming its first SUV, the Purosangue, which is currently in development and should be unveiled officially by the end of 2021. The Purosangue foundation apparently tried to first enter talks with the carmaker but no agreement could be reached concerning the use of the Purosangue name, so Ferrari saw fit to enter litigation.
The lawsuit claims that the trademark registration should be taken from the charity because of a lack of use for the past years, despite the charity using it even in a partnership with Adidas, which saw branded sneakers and clothes emerge from the cooperation.
Ferrari obviously wants to eventually make t-shirts, keychains and baseball caps featuring its upcoming Purosangue crossover, so it probably won't back down from the lawsuit until it gets the trademark in full.
The litigation is bound to upset a lot of people, seeing that it mostly sounds like a David versus Goliath battle that's definitely unfair for the not-for-profit foundation. That being said, the lawsuit is in line with Ferrari's way of upholding its prestigious name in recent years and we should probably look at the much bigger picture.
It definitely doesn't mean that I agree with the big fish eating the little fish just to ensure its own survival mentality, though, as there are countless other ways for Ferrari and the Purosangue Foundation to co-exist.
Never mind Ferrari making an SUV, I can somewhat understand it even I don't fully agree with it, but going after the little guy and transforming from a company that makes road cars just to fund its racing activities to a ruthless corporation is a very sure way to alienate Ferrari aficionados. Sure, a lioness killing to protect its cubs is one thing, but destroying for the sake of destruction is another. There's nothing thoroughbred about corporations.
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