Ferrari Loses Rights For Testarossa Name To German Toy Company
The Ferrari Testarossa is one of the Italian carmaker’s most iconic brand names. You may see that slapped on an electric shaver soon.
A Nuremberg-based company – Autec AG – owned by Kurt Hesse has won a hearing at a Düsseldorf court in Germany, which entitles the firm with the right to use the Testarossa brand name. Now that’s not going to be well-received by a certain Italian supercar manufacturer by the name of Ferrari. The Ferrari Testarossa is probably the reason why the Italian word for “redhead” was added to the vocabulary of thousands of car enthusiasts around the world.
Though the whole issue sounds too silly to be taken seriously, the court ruled that Ferrari hadn’t used the Testarossa brand name enough in the past five years to protect the same from being used by someone else.
As reported by the German publication Spiegel Online, a court spokeswoman said,
"A brand needs to be used to protect it, which the company has not done here."
Kurt Hesse has claimed that the Testarossa name wasn’t by Ferrari in 20 years. Which means that he doesn’t have to pay any licensing fees to the Italian carmaker. Last heard, he wants the newly-acquired name to garnish bicycles, e-bikes and electric shavers. Ouch. Doesn’t all of this sound straight out of an ensemble cast legal/business drama series?
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Watch the Petrolicious video below. Just look at how beautiful the Ferrari Testarossa looks even after three decades since the day it was born.
Ferrari’s lawyers stated that the brand name was always in effect as the manufacturer was taking care of the maintenance and repairs for the 1980s and 1990s models of the sports car. The court shot down that argument by saying that the services came under the Ferrari brand name and not with a Testarossa reference. Regardless of putting up a brave fight, Ferrari didn’t succeed in winning in case. But there is still hope as the case can be moved to a higher court a.ka. the Oberlandesgericht.
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Until then, Ferrari can only pray that the Testarossa brand name doesn’t end up on the plastic body of an electric trimmer. That’ll be too sad a place for the legendary car’s iconic name to end up on. And we are still living in an age when electric shaver manufacturers haven’t gotten over that absurd habit of slapping on “Turbo” on their new range of facial hedge cutters.
Source: Spiegel Online