Truck Mistaken for F1 Car

The F-150 may be the best-selling truck (aka “pickup truck”) in North America, but I doubt it is so well known outside of there. It seems ironic that Ford is suing Ferrari for alleged infringement of its”F-150″  model name, when people outside the US have probably not heard of this truck (or are even able to buy it in their market) – and F1 is hardly religiously followed in the USA.

Laughably, Ford is asserting, “Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the F150 in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark.”

What? Ferrari is so desperately in need of someone to piggy-back on for publicity, that the best they could come up with for their new F1 championship contender was… a pickup truck? And they even admit that the F150 name (that Ferrari is now stating is just an abbreviation) is different to Ford’s own trademark, which is hyphenated.

It seems like a case of over-zealous-lawyer syndrome. Or is it Ford who is, in fact, trying to drum up some interest in its lethargic truck brand through a spurious high-profile lawsuit linking it with glamorous Formula One? Only time and phalanxes of lawyers will tell.

Readers (and lawyers) are invited to peruse the following visual guide for disambiguation purposes:

This is not the first time Ford F-150s have come into conflict with Ferraris. But who will end up on top this time?

Source: BBC