Shelby Sues Internet Forum

[Ron Earp]

This is probably old news to many of you who frequent Cobra sites but I just ran across it this morning. Seems FFCobra.com has been named in a lawsuit by the illustrious Mr. Shelby and you can read about it here:

http://www.iptrademarkattorney.com/...omplaint-lawsuit-trade-dress-factory-five.pdf

FFCobra.com LEGAL DEFENSE FUND - PLEASE HELP - FFCobra.com - Factory Five Racing Discussion Forum

While not GT40 related it certainly is close to home since many of us are also Cobra enthusiasts as well. If you're interested in Cobra replicas you might wish to donate to the cause there.

Ron

 

[Bill D]

CS is suing Factory Five for trade dress infringement (Type 65 Coupe). They named FFcbra.com also because they say they are "an agent of Factory Five".

It's a real mess

 

What total wast of time and money. We all know the lawyers are going to be the ones making the money on this. I think FFR has already spent 15K. It's CS that's breaking an existing agreement he has with FFR.

 

[Randy V]

There are a number of us that are supporting Bill (owner of the ffcobra website) monetarily to fight the suit..

Frankly I think the old b@stard's cheese has slid totally off the cracker..

 

[Allen English]

It's too bad that this is happening, Shelby has just managed to run his what use to be a good name through the mud in his now remaining years. All these replica car companies helped keep him popular with the majority of the world and this is the thanks they get.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I think the thing that bugs me the most is that CS is just not an enthusiast as we are. He never appears to have much interest or excitement about cars or his cars in particular. It's all been business to him. Always has been. I guess that's all right, but it's really too bad as he's missing out on the fun.

 

Randy, Good one! I never heard that one before! "Cheese sliding off a cracker"! Got to love it!!!

 

[Jack]

Right up there and better than "A few fries short of a happy meal".

 

[40 Bud]

Anybody want to rethink their comments about Safir and its trademark comments?

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

I've never met Mr. Shelby (nor do I want to), but the Safir folks I have met. (well, two of the three, anyway). To say they are different types of folks from CS doesn't even begin to describe it. Just to begin with, I've never even seen a photo of CS with a wrench in his hand. I'm not sure he'd know what to do with one. But much of my car was built by Safir- not subbed out, but built by those guys with their hands. No one's perfect, but they shouldn't be tarred with the same brush in any way. CS is a practiced and accomplished dissembler and not overly interested in telling the truth. The Safir guys are not that kind of people at all. They are decent guys and fellow GT40 enthusiasts.

 

[Ian K]

Right up there and better than "A few fries short of a happy meal".

Hey, that's my sig !!!

Ian

 

[John W]

this makes me very sad.

Whilst I can see all points he is making to generally be true (they do look alike, they do refer to cobra etc etc) what is the point of all this, given just how long they have been producing them ?
The people that go buy FF cobras most likely can't afford a CS cobra, so just aren't in the same market. Besides which, I doubt a FF cobra could ever really be passed off as an original.

so he might get some people to reword their websites, and change their domain names, and no doubt hand over a large pile of cash (could even bankrupt some of them).
will that make him sleep better ?

I hope the guys he is after don't get too burnt, and I hope it costs him a small fortune.
Unfortunately he has now entered the group of people generally refered to in the uk as tossers.

 

[Ron Earp]

I feel that it is extremely difficult to predict what future actions entities might take. And, based on that it'd be folly to assume that Shelby or Safir might not take interest in the GT40 replica market or this forum. As of this writing Safir owns the GT40 name, is trying to trademark the "shape" of the car we call a GT40, and Superformance replica GT40s appear in the SAAC Registry.

 

[Bill Hara]

What did Safir buy when they bought the name "GT40"? Did they buy the right to build cars? Did the buy the intellectual property? Did they buy the global supply of the design drawings and rights to the shape? Did they buy the brand and merchandising rights?????

What are we talking about here? Shelby didn't own anything GT40, he was contracted to run a race team. Whay are his cyborg fingers poking into every pie?

 

[Jack]

Like the man said, "The cheese slid off his cracker".

 

[Mark Charlton]

Carol Shelby writes a monthly article in Octane magazine (an otherwise very nice publication) and he too often uses his article to shine a light on the Shelby brand push it's latest offerings. I find it rather shameless but in perfect character with what he has come to represent to many in the collector car community. Greedy and ungracious.

 

[Cliff Beer]

I've found that as people age into the last stages of life they tend to either go somewhat benign and happy to still be around, or, they become cranky, contentious and somewhat narrow minded. I suspect old CS falls into the latter camp. Also, it's likely that he has an estate he would like to maximize in the time he has left on the earth (for the benefit of heirs or ?) - it can become a competitive thing. No doubt, being competitive is one quality the man has in spades.

As to Safir, to be precise, they bought the "GT40" trademark (and a bunch of spare parts and tooling). In trademark law there is this notion of "confusingly similar" which basically means that no one else can utililze a mark commercially which is "confusingly similar" - it doesn't have to be exactly the same in other words. If it evokes an image or makes an impression in the mind of the viewer which is "confusingly similar" to the protected mark then it is infringement. The line of logic that Safir's attorney is now trying to convince the court of is that the actual GT40 shape - the shape we hold dear on this forum - evokes a particular mental image in the mind of the viewer in the same manner that the trademarked "GT40" mark does, such that the shape is thus "confusingly similar" to the "GT40" mark. That logic is quite a stretch in my view but there are precedence in trademark law which may make that a winning argument. The success or failure of that argument will somewhat depend upon the nature, character, background and experience of the presiding judge. If that judge finds in favor of Safir then, you just watch, within a couple weeks a whole bunch of good GT40 vendor folks on this forum are going to have nasty letters from Safir's attorney arriving in their mailboxes demanding they cease business in anything GT40 and make payments for past infringement. Safir is just a bunch of nice guys that just want to get along? Yeah, right.

 

[Bill Hara]

Thanks Cliff
Kind of hi-lights peoples motives...

One last question, I thought I read somewhere that Safir only had rights to build 20 (or so) cars in number sequence beyond 1107 (or 1108 - can't remember) which was the last MkIII. If that is the case, then did their "rights" not cease beyond this point as to the production of GT40 continuations?

 

[Keith]

Whatever the outcome of the "shapeshifting" argument, it surely only means a royalty paying on each production kit, what, say about 10% of retail? And a mere 5% for every car a producer has ever sold in the past? What's the problem? :lipsrsealed:

Looking ahead, it might see the death of the turnkey and turnkey minus as options.

But hey! They are nice guys right?

 

[roaldin]

Re' Octane: It was a good mag' until Shelby came along with his full page self promoting advertorial.
I dropped my subscription because he completely negated the feel good factor of the mag' for me.


Tim.