Faux Ferraris Nabbed by Italian Tax Police
The ultimate in faux design – a Ferrari shell, Pontiac Fiero powertrain. Doesn’t sound too enticing.
Yet, that’s exactly what wannabe Ferrari owners were paying $30,000 for. But, Italian police – and Ferrari – aren’t as keen on the imitations. Yesterday, Italian tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, raided auto-body shops across Italy.
The faux Ferrari ring operated in several cities across Italy and the police rounded up seven ready-to-sell Fiero/Ferraris and seven more awaiting an upscale makeover.
The head of the Palermo unit of the tax police, Guido Mario Geremia, who spearheaded the investigation, said, “There are people who buy fake Louis Vuitton and Gucci bags, so it's not so strange that someone would buy a fake Ferrari.
Comments
Scott in AZ
So are the Italian police going to start stalking e-bay for fiero-ferrari's and lambo's now too? I thought immitation was supposed to be a compliment? Not that I like the Fiero kit car thing, but seriously - they are pretty easy to spot.
FLASHPOINT
The article wasn't too clear- were these things being marketed as Ferraris or not? Only Ferrari can build/market Ferrari. And if you can't tell the difference between a Ferrari and a Fiero, well, maybe you shouldn't be driving anyway.
cdwrx
I hope they have the Fiero interiors intact with all those lovely faux Allen head bolts and molded stitching. So mistakable for a Ferrari.
uragan
“It starts to taint the brand. It becomes a big deal; all of the sudden legitimate products start to lose their color, their appeal. The fake cheapen and diminish the real thing.
dante
Who is that fooling anyway? Funniest thing is that a real 308 can be had in the $30k's.
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Chelle
The reason WSJ picked it up is twofold, one, it's now run by Rupert Murdoch, so they want eye grabbing stories with headlines that sell (like the word Ferrari in the title). And the second is the reporter. She's a junior reporter who mostly does fashion and celeb stories, and is familiar with Italy. She's covered fake Gucci bags before so she THINKS she knows something about cheap knock off's.
Her name is Rosamaria Mancini (rosamaria.mancini@dowjones.com, I'm going to send her a note asking her to learn about the other side of the story.), here's an index of stories she has done: http://findarticles.com/p/search?tb=art&qt=%22Mancini%2C+Rosamaria%22
and here's a video story she did recently: http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1428601198
This is WSJ quality reporting??? It plays like a college freshman marketing major's submission for a class.
Basically rather than do some reporting and some research, maybe discover that there is a huge community of replica owners of all kinds of cars, she basically did a press release in the WSJ for the Italian tax police. To me she is just collecting a paycheck and not informing the public. The tax police are working hard to sell a few enthusiasts building replicas as a "counterfeit ring" because it gets them good press. She SHOULD have gotten both sides of the story.. that's reporting... this is posting a press release for the prosecutor who gave her his side.
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