Ferrari rename F1 car again over Ford row to ‘make it clear to the thickest people’

2011 F1 season

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Ferrari have made a second adjustment to the name of their 2011 F1 car following their dispute with Ford over the use of the name ‘F150’.

The car will now be called the Ferrari 150° Italia.

Ferrari say the change “should make it clear even to the thickest of people that the name of the car is a tribute to the anniversary of the unification of our country.”

The team previously changed the name of the car to the Ferrari F150th Italia

A statement issued by the team said: “It might seem like a Kafkaesque scenario, but the affair relating to the name of the car with which Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa will tackle this year’s Formula 1 World Championship saw its final and decisive episode played out these past few days with the concomitant withdrawal by Ford of the summons. Therefore common sense has prevailed.

“In order to avoid the slightest risk of anyone confusing a Formula 1 car with a pick-up truck, for their part, the men from Maranello have decided that the car will lose the F that precedes the number 150 and which stands for Ferrari, as it has done on numerous occasions when it’s come to giving a car a code name, be it for the race track or the road.

“It appears that this could have caused so much confusion in the minds of the consumer across the Pond that, at the same time as losing the F, the name will be completely Italianised, replacing the English ‘th’ with the equivalent Italian symbol.

“Therefore the name will now read as the Ferrari 150° Italia, which should make it clear even to the thickest of people that the name of the car is a tribute to the anniversary of the unification of our country.

“Let’s hope the matter is now definitely closed and that we can concentrate on more serious matters, namely ensuring that our car that already seems to be pretty good out of the box, becomes a real winner.”

Ford told the Detroit Free Press today that: “We are pleased we were able resolve this issue amicably.

“This resolution ensures that Ford’s famous and distinctive F-150 trademark will be protected.”

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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139 comments on “Ferrari rename F1 car again over Ford row to ‘make it clear to the thickest people’”

  1. Clear? It makes it sounds like it overheats a lot.

    1. Maybe to you English people, but in Italian it never would be perceived as a temperature.

      Can I propose the photo caption as COTD?

      1. Unfortunately the “thickest people” Ferrari were referring to speak English, not Italian…

        1. I know, which I think is very strange because the people the previous name would confuse the most are the Italians.

          That [letter][number][english suffix] [italian] was an abomination.
          Glad they listened to me on Twitter, eventually.

          1. SeattleChris
            4th March 2011, 21:43

            Seriously, lets all just call it the F150 as it was originally proposed. It is in line with the standard Ferrari naming convention and is easy to remember and say.

            I’m not sure Keith can make the suggestion we use F150, so just do it yourself.

            Nice pic of the F150 Keith!

          2. Oh, there’s no doubt about that.
            Everyone would always called the car F150, anyway, no matter what Ferrari or Ford said.

            Let’s leave this kind of headache to F1.com and their over-formally Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, etc.

          3. @SeattleChris You’re not alone : the Fans F150 pact becomes yet more relevant.

            It’s an Italian company, and it’s their history. What do they prefer to call it? If they want to call it F150, or F150 Italia.. then so be it?

          4. Let’s just use apostrophes and stops to abbreviate the long name the car now has. So, Ferrari 150º Italia becomes F’150’I. Or F’150. if you are in a real hurry.

        2. LOL, I think the “thickest of people’ dig was aimed not at english speakers, but rather a countery that speaks english….they produce pick-up trucks.

    2. They were looking forward and anticipating that August slot for the Bahrain GP!

      So 150° (so almost going backwards. What hairpin has that kind of angle?), might also be a reference to the almost 180° spinning of the “real name” by now.
      This is getting real comedy value.

      Off course this name makes a lot more sense than the “F150th Italia”, and it was suggested on this blog immediately after they made the first change.

      1. I thought the new name was inspired by some of Massa’s pre-season spins. Thats the only logical explanation I could find.. :)

    3. I think you English can pronounce it as if it were “th”, as that “°” symbol varies from language to language and in England it is, in fact, “th”.

      1. Yeah its just that claiming it simplifies it when to any casual english speaking fan it says 150 degrees is ridculous, especially when its had 2 previous names.

        1. Now the °ickest will get it…

          1. Haha verstappen! But I think the ‘thickest of people’ they are referring to are the Americans and Ford. I always find Ferrari press releases amusing! :P

          2. I’m surprised they are baiting ford like this. considering…

          3. Aaah you got to love Ferrari and Italians! :D Never shy for insulting or speaking their mind

    4. UKfanatic (@)
      5th March 2011, 14:10

      150th or 150º is the same but when you google it it looks different so thats why the name is the same without being the same

    5. I’m still going to call it and blog it as F-150.

      Go ahead Ford, sue me!

  2. To me, it sounds like 150 degrees i.e. an obtuse (91-179 degree) angle. Which is unfortunate because it makes it sound like the teams thinks its car will be obtuse (awkward) like the F60 from 2009 was.

    To other people (such as Viva F1) it sounds like the metric for Ferrari Gas Mark 2…

    1. The ‘150 degrees’ refers to Alonso’s eyebrows.

      1. F150 degrees celcius.. hmmmm more than enough to the boiling point (100C).. :)

      1. brilliant

      2. Haha. You beat me to posting my own pic. Shocking :)
        (Thanks though!)

  3. Ford,as well as GM, are run by Big Dummies and it is neccesary for Ferrari to explain things carefully so thick minds can understand.
    A good statement by Ferrari

    1. First of all, I can’t tell if your kidding, so I will leave your comment alone. but Ferrari’s comment wasn’t just made to the people that run those companies, it was also made to the people in general. they say the ‘consumers’ across the pond and I personally find it annoying and uncalled for. It’s not that Ford is confused by a pickup and an F1 car, it’s that they own the name. If Ford badged one of it’s race cars as a 308GTS or a Testarossa, I can guarantee you that these guys who run their mouths at Ferrari would be going absolutely insane.

      I’m a big fan of Ferrari F1, but the current management doesn’t seem to know when to shut up….I miss the Old Man

    2. A retarded statement by Ferrari … it was them that messed up originally with a violation of trademark law, if we’re looking for thickos, how about management incapable of even the most basic and rudimentary due-diligence.

      This kind of churlish, abusive, snotty garbage, from a supposedly grown-up, sophisticated international company, is cringe inducing, an absolute embarrssment frankly. Is this what people buying the Ferrari brand expect?

      And all for nothing more than Luca’s ego, a transparent play to the peanut gallery in the service of tawdry political ambition …. I thought we wanted sport and politics to be kept separate.

      1. lighten up!!!!

        have a beer! chill !!

        1. And while your drinking that beer, ask the rest of the Italian people how they feel about the English “th” on a Ferrari F1 car.

        2. Bren, be quiet, shhhhh time, grown-ups trying to talk here.

          Alex, no-one gives a monkeys about th or °, I am talking about their arrogant and petty tone and their cowardly veiled smears of other companies and countries. They should try and show a little respect. Or are they incapable of basic civility?

          If they had used that tone as a commenter on this site, they’d likely get their post deleted.

          Ford had a legitimate legal right to protect their property, and Ferrari know this full well, demonstrated by how quickly they backed-down and immediately cobbled together an ultimately inadequate replacement name.
          They were bang out of order, and they knew it. To start insulting those that were in the right, had done nothing wrong, and were victims of an attempted trademark infringement, is both childish and boorish.

          For a company trying to prove itself to be the smart ones, having to rename a car once may be regarded as misfortue; to publicly backtrack twice looks like carelessness.

          1. I understand your point… My point was simply defending Ferrari’s renaming of the car with the Italian “th”. It looks better on paper than an English “th” and as Seattle Chris has pointed out, it will always be called the F150 by the public.

            Oh, and any time is a good time for a beer

            Is there anyone here that can write out the Italian name for the car?

            F one hundred fiftieth = ?

            Honestly I had to Google fiftieth for spelling, I don’t think I’ve ever written that word before.

          2. The person whose comments should be under scrutineering are clearly yours. A relaxed conversation would be just fine for this website.

            The way this statement looks, Ford demanded they change the name more than they did before. After all, their truck is named F-150, not F150. Not a big difference, but in german law that would make a difference. From my experience american law is a bit different so I guess Ferari could have had problems. They clearly showed goodwill and immediately changed the name. Seems that still wasn’t enough for Ford. Why would Ford want the name to be changed more? So that nobody confuses the F-150 with the Ferrari race car name. Who would confuse a pickup truck with a racecar? Ferrari gave the answer to that in their statement.

            I think there is no need to get aggressive about it, if you take a step down you might even see a slight touch of humour.

            Cheers.

          3. Bren, be quiet, shhhhh time, grown-ups trying to talk here.

            Not the best way to start a comment that asks others to “show a little respect”.

          4. … But turns out to be pretty much exactly the correct response to someone who demonstrated a fundamentally lack of basic respect for any other posters comment.

            It’s not complicated, within the rules of this blog, my, or anyones, posts are not required to be pre-submitted to ensure the tone is deemed light enough by characters like Bren.

            If they wish to argue or debate the content then that’s good, but pulling weakly passive-aggressive stunts like that particular piece of zero-value-added snark, deserves and requires to be called out as a lack of manners everytime it occurs.

            If he had nothing particular to say on the matter at hand, or nothing substantive to contribute to this particular subthread, why did he feel compelled to behave in such a rude and dismissively condescending manner.
            Not very respectful of the community is it? Do you see David?

          5. why did he feel compelled to behave in such a rude and dismissively condescending manner.

            @Feynman. I’m not sure how to point out the irony and utter chutzpah of you posting these words about someone else without seeming to be pointing out the obvious, but it was irresistible anyways.

  4. Ford is crying for nothing, who will confuse a Ferrari F1 car with a pick-up? Probably only in America lawyers can be stubborn enough in oder to try to obtain some money from Ferrari due to a similar name.
    Honestly I think Ferrari should keep the name as F150th and go to the court to fight this case with Ford. Any judge will laugh in the face of any lawyer for this.

    1. Please see my comment above regarding the 308GTS and rethink your strategy….

  5. Any Italian speakers who can spell that out for us? How is it pronounced? Obviously it’s not 150 degrees…

    I propose they change its name for every race this year. After Melbourne it could be changed to 150F Italian Legacy. After Sepang it could be the Ferrari ht051 ailati. After China it could be the Ferrari F 100+50=not a pickup truck. There’s no end to the creative ways in which they could clear things up for the thickest among us.

    1. I believe the ° is the same as when English speakers have a ‘th’ after numbers. I might just stick to calling it “150 Italia” because ‘th’ sounds awful.

      1. Correct, Keith.

        We spell “Effe Centocinquantesimo Italia”, where the bold part is “th”.

        1. I’d like to add that, while i agree that in English it sounds rather awful, in italian it seems somewhat “musical”, better than just the number itself.

          And it strongly pairs with the fact that we refer to our celebration with “Il centocinquantesimo” most of the times.

          1. Thanks. Centocinquantesimo is what I was looking for, but didn’t they drop the “Effe” part? Like Keith says, I’ll probably just call it the “one-fifty” Italia, since I might have a hard time remembering centocinquantesimo. I’ll try though!

          2. US_Peter, you’re right. Just drop the F-part, didn’t think about that!

        2. If I were English, I’d pronounce it “Ef a hundred and fiftieth Italia”, transalting the suffix, altough the mix of English and Italian is bad.

        3. I would love to hear a BBC presenter attempting to pronounce “Effe Centocinquantesimo Italia” :-)

          1. OMG. David Coulthard in particular.

          2. Thanks Luis… I was asking that question above then scrolled down and saw you had already answered it for Peter.

          3. Fluorides lives in Monaco. I guarantee he speaks better Italian than you or me.

          4. Coulthard, not “fluorides”

            iAutoCorrect iS cRap.

        4. I can say it but I can’t spell it. It sounds lovely in Italian.

      2. Keith, didn’t you previously suggest you might carry on calling it the F150 anyway?

  6. absolutely pathetic

    1. haha, knew you would be insulted by their statement.

    2. At least they didn’t try to claim this time that that had been its name all along and they were just using an abbreviation in all of their previous official press releases…

  7. Some other names they passed up:

    “Ferrari F1 car built in the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy”
    “Ferrari F50 plus 100”
    “Ferrari F Henry Ford”

    1. Last one sounds perfect :>

    2. I guess the last name reflects how Enzo would’ve felt about Henry Ford II :D

    3. surely if ferrari want to be acurate, they’d call it the F1000°C as thats the tempeature f1 exhausts run at.

  8. I was looking forward to delivery of my brand new F-150 pick up , but when I arrived, the dealer drove up to me in a red Ferrari Formula One car and handed me the keys. Not much room for the hay bales but I sure get around quicker!

    1. Good job, you had taken ill before and lost some 80 pound. Wouldn’t even have fit into it if not for that!

  9. I try to be balanced when I’m on this site but I have to admit The Horse Whisperer made me literally lol. This is one of the reasons why I love Ferrari; they appear arrogant and are often insulting but at least they say how they feel. I love it when we get a bit of panto and/or emotion in F1 like when Webber slammed his glass down at Silverstone, THP called Stefan GP “the Serbian vultures” or Hamilton shoved that camera the over way when he was in the garage at Canada 08.

    It can be immature and make a lot of people hate Ferrari pretty quickly and they’re not exactly graceful but I can’t help but love that style even when I don’t agree with the substance especially in a day and age when everything in F1 is just PR.

    1. This one is pretty good comedy. Obviously Ferrari is looking forward to making some nice 150° spins on track this year ;-)

      1. The Ferrari 458°?

    2. They are the only real racing team left tbh. They stink of passion while the rest all look like bankers.

      1. Considering Ferrari spends more on F1 each year than most other teams, I suppose Ferrari would actually have more accountants.

        Well accountants are nearly bankers right?

        In fact, from the perspective of real racing teams not looking like bankers, I’d strongly suggest NASCAR teams are more real than F1 teams, And in fact F1 is so not real, that it is in fact just a figment of your imagination.

        But I digress…. XD

    3. We can all decent to insults and mutual disrespect. People or entities in public positions impact, and influence people around the world. This influence can be as a roll model, as a provoker, as an educater, as a standard.

      That in mind, I’m drawn to anyone who feels the need decent to insult, however justified when its a non spontaneous moment. Even in spontaneity its better to find a respectful solution to issues.

      Howver, it is what it is, but I don’t warm to this ‘passion’, I warm to genius and the people that pick up the challenge and get on with it.

      1. I don’t like it when they insult people/groups as I stated above and I do wish they could be more respectful. However, on the other side it means that we do get bouts of honesty and usually something more to talk about it the opff season :P

    4. Actually all this really shows is that no-one takes Ferrari seriously anymore. You can imagine what would happen if Christian Horner accused people of being thick. Yet we’re so used to this juvenile (if amusing, yes, objectively) stuff that they’re like an old man whom we humour.

  10. has to be the best press release i have read in a while!

  11. How drunk did they get when they thought about THIS?

  12. The only thickness in evidence is Ferrari’s inability to understand the cause of action and legal issues raised in the complaint accompanying Ford’s summons.

    The F150 is Ford’s biggest product, period. Why should they let a competitor, FIAT/Chrysler, use it in an international platform, never mind the legal necessity of establishing a continuous, vigorous defense of its valuable marks?

    And now every journalist will curse them as they repeatedly having to retrieve the symbol from the bowels of MSWord menus to write about F1.

    1. ALT + 1076 = °

      1. Sorry, 0176.

        ALT+1076 gives you a 4 funnily enough.

    2. Switch to Czech (CS) keybord and its on the upper left+shift. Lucky me, eh!

      1. Or on a mac… it’s just shift+option+8.

        1. or Alt + 0 (zero) on a mac = º ;)

    3. I have the Italian keyboard and I press Shift + à.

    4. While I understand why Ford needed to defend the F-150 name, I find it very hard to believe that anybody would cite this as an example of misuse of copyright. Ferrari’s use of the name is completely unrelated to Ford, and this isn’t a product for public consumption. You may as well say that no other company can use F150 as an internal name code.

      Anyway, Centocinquantesimo sounds much better than one hundred fifty/ieth. Sensible move by Ferrari there.

      1. I’ll say it again….let’s see Ford badge one of their race cars as a 308GTS, Testarossa, F430, etc and see what Ferrari does….

        1. But those are both commercial types of cars. The 150° Italia isn’t and by 2012 will anyhow be replaced by its successor.

          1. It’s exactly the mirror of this situation. Note that he said that if it was a Ford racing car.

    5. If Ford had any brains they’d realise that suddenly all those googling F150 would have been presented with pictures of a Ford, huge opportunity to expand their brand missed. Thick barely covers it.

    6. What competitor?
      Who the hell is talking about fiat/chrysler here?
      We are talking about Ferrari’s F1 car that is likely to be fighting for the championship.
      F-150 (NOT F150) is the biggest product in US (I’ve never seen one in europe), and there are NO F1 races in US this year.
      So F150 will never even get close to F-150….
      And besides, this is Ferrari….Ford should have asked for them to change the name to F150 for promotional reasons, but i guess a car maker that cant make a racing car wouldnt bother anyway…

      1. In cases like this I am really glad that Enzo did not sell to Ford, we all know how well Ford manages other brands….
        Oh and btw, if anyone is going to bring up the FORD GT as a good racing car, please read it’s history and you’ll find out that it was made in Britain by Lola and is actually a properly developed Lola GT.

        1. Although Eric Broadly was on the team that designed and developed the GT40, and Lola provided space for the team to work in until their own facility was ready, Lola Cars had nothing to do with the project. The car was designed and developed by Ford Advanced Vehicles, Ltd. Various parts of the cars were built by independent contractors in the UK and the US and by Ford, and the engines were Fords (with Weslake piston heads).

    7. In Word on a PC you can use CTRL+SHIFT+”+” to go into superscript and back out.

  13. BREAKING NEWS!

    “Ford launches legal case against Ferrari for unauthorised use of the letters ‘F’ and ‘R’ in their brand name.”

  14. Lets be realistic here, we’re all still going to call it the F150.

    1. Why not just call it “the Ferrari”? Why would you call it by it’s chassis designatation?

      1. Point well taken. The model number or chassis designation or whatever you want to call it is pretty much irrelevant. Seriously, the only people who have these things memorized are the ones spending too much time on the computer in Mommy’s basement.

        The whole F150 / F-150 argument here (with a few exceptions) misses the point completely. Ford sued to protect a trademark, and not just from Ferrari. Fast forward 5 years to the introduction of the Geely F150, the Chinese automaker’s first entry into the American pickup market. Ford sues to prevent this, and is told “Well, you let Ferrari call a car an “F150.”

        Farfetched? You bet. But that’s what you pay lawyers to do. There isn’t an executive at Ford who cares about this dispute EXCEPT to ensure that the F-150 brand is protected against *real* infringement.

  15. Felipe Massa drives a Ferrari F150 Ferrari F150th Italia Ferrari 150° Italia

    Not a good publicity, it will be remembered with having had three names, two of which not particularly nice.

    1. Does the 150° refer to the size of the u-turns they made with the team orders saga?

  16. The identity of The Horse Whisperer is the biggest mystery since The Stig. I really do love these posts just for entertainment value.

    1. Maybe Montezemolo himself? :D

  17. I think that birthday boy Italia wouldn’t have minded it much if the car had simply been called the Ferrari F2011 to begin with.

    1. Comment of the day mate

  18. Clearly the most obtuse legal argument ever levelled between two respectable (perhaps one is less so) companies. How many resources wasted in order to arrive at a solution which leaves Ferrari even more bitter about their relationship with Ford (if that is even possible) and likely leaves the buffoons at Ford thinking “did they insult us? Hmph.”

    1. you’re an idiot if you think that Ford is run by buffoons, have you ever researched how big they are and how many countries they’ve been successful in?? Ford probably ‘wasted’ about 7 minutes telling Ferrari to not use the name…

      1. Yes I know who Ford is, didnt Schumacher win a bunch of titles in their f1 truck?

        Wait.  I think I’m confused.  

        Anyway, I never said Ford is ran by buffoons, but when I said buffoons it was in reference to the lawyers and people at Ford… who actually felt they needed to protect their big ole truck from being slandered via association with a lithe, championship contending F1 car. If anything the association is more damaging to Ferrari.  I doubt less than 1% of Americans who own F-150s could actually even pronounce the name of either driver for the current Ferrari F1 team, let alone be aware of the name of it’s 2011 challenger.

        1. So you think that Americans with F-150s are idiots that can’t pronounce names??? Wow, I think you’re confused too.

          The bottom line is that Ford owns the name, don’t be naive and think that Ferrari wouldn’t do the same. If Ford named one of their races cars after a Ferrari…say a NASCAR Ford Testarossa….do you think Ferrari would laugh it off. No, they would sue.

          Get real and get off your European high-horse…

          1. But you see, the Testarossa IS a racecar. And the moniker is much more specific than an f150. I understand that Ferrari may have done it as a jab at Ford, but I don’t think a lawsuit claiming the naming of the f1 car is damaging to ford is ludicrous.
            I mean …really? Ford?

            And your argument against me thinking that F150 truck owners are idiots is moot because Ford themselves said the Ferrari F150 F1 car would be “confusing” to consumers. That’s a pretty scathing criticism of the American F150 consumer, that they’d show up at a Ford dealership after flipping through and seeing the F150th on SpeedTV. Come on.

          2. Can you say “Effe Centocinquantesimo Italia”
            5 times in a row real fast?

  19. Absolute comedy gold!

  20. It’s ironic that something established to commemorate a country, has become something that has ended with insults.

    If more ironically, given the political climate in Italy, this gesture has become political in itself.

  21. Americans resorting to lawsuits over nothing? come now, surely you jest…

  22. if i were LDM i would never change the name, at the end a F1 car is not a commercial product.

    a low effort from ford for a cheap advertising over ferrari name.

  23. For once I’m happy to see Ferrari’s opinionated statements. The whole underhanded slam on the Ford people is pretty hilarious X). And frankly deserved. This whole bout was stupid from the start.

    1. Indeed, Ferrari were pretty stupid to pick a trademarked name or their car. How thick can you get ey?

  24. Q: Whats in a name?

    A: Obviously a lot of animosity and bitterness when
    a Ferrari is involved.

  25. This press release makes me think a whole lot less of Ferrari. They were wrong and thick headed to think they could just grab any name they wished. Ferrari is one of the most diligent defenders of their trademarks so they damn well should have known they were wrong. The kicker is that they now choose to insult an entire country full of their fans.

    Classy.

  26. “The thickest of people?”… What the hell are they playing at?

  27. Even the thickest of people will get it? Why are Ferrari poking fun at the hefty and rotund? Uncalled for, Luca!

  28. This is stupid. Anyone with half a brain could confuse a garbage commercial garbage pickup truck and a purpose built racing car which could be described as a prototype. the Ford is only really sold in America who for the most part have no interest in F1 like most world sports hence the alternative indycar and american football not soccer.

    Plus Fords dislike for Ferrari is telling them where to go when tried to buy them and thus ford replying via their european division to create a great car like the GT40 and the rest of Fords great cars with the exception for the model T and the Mustang.

    Don’t get me wrong I’m a fan of american products ie apple products (fanboy). However ford america seems to be run by accountants and their legal team rather than creating an exceptional product like Ferrari does with their roadcars which can’t be denied are exceptional works of engineering at the moment. Ford make money through product placement via the pickups and other named products from their past i.e the mustang. But are these products really relevant to the rest of the world.

    And frankly if you get confused by a F1 car and a pick up truck should you be able allowed to drive. As the insane in either vehicle couldn’t couldn’t get round a corner where as a average driver couldn’t get round a corner. Wait theirs some common ground.

    And yes a don’t follow any team what so ever as I like both Mclaren and Ferrari or anyone who delivers a competitive season.

    However I do feel Ferrari can be childish at times in this case with their press release they are being quite funny. Although it is quite childish reaction which Ford are being in this case anyway.

    Its like someone saying my names David but you can’t be because that’s my name.

    1. Remember though that this is about registered trademark. It’s not about confusing a car and a truck.

      Ferrari would do the same.

  29. Why on earth a car company like Ford who is dead is trying to fight with Ferrari who is young & alive, I don’t know? I think people from the Ford should love that at least they got some PR by doing this,hope this boost up their car sale.

  30. Bloody hell my comments grammar was comparable with fords childishness in this matter. At least I have of having a bottle of wine in me and it being nearly two in the morning [and my fingers not working properly].

  31. I still got the grammar and the construction of that comment wrong. Sorry, but may as well get the practice in. WOO! for who ever wins the title and those who produce a hard fought fight.

  32. Let’s face it – the commentators, like myself, will probably just call it “The Ferrari”

    1. Indeed.

      I really don’t understand why people say “let’s keep calling it F150 anyway”. When would you even do that? Only when you compare the Ferrari over years or something.

  33. The “dummies” at Ford are not suggesting that it is possible to confuse a Ferrari Formula One car with a pick-up truck. They don’t want another automobile manufacturer using their registered trademark. That seems like a legitimate concern to me.

    Trademark infringement is a serious offence that can be avoided by doing a little research, something the dummies at Ferrari failed to do.

    Anyway, Ford and Ferrari love sticking it to each other. I’m sure all concerned have enjoyed the episode immensely.

    1. Trademarks protection is created to avoid customer confusion first and foremost. Sure, nowadays everything gets milked and called “intellectual property” (IP), but that doesn’t mean it should be suddenly put in a vault and protected.

      If you don’t use it, it gets invalidated. Likewise, if it is a common term, it shouldn’t really be protected.
      If it is used in a clearly different context, then it is not confusing for any of your customers, unless they are willingly stupid, or lawyers, and likewise should not be a problem.

      Non of this changes from calling it IP, except for companies using it to bully others into doing what they want or to drum up some publicity, and not being stopped by a responsible (eh) government.

      1. Trademark protection was created to protect trademarks.

  34. SennaNmbr1 (@)
    5th March 2011, 7:48

    Gotta love Ferrari’s launguage in situations like this! :D

    Ford must really feel small after that statement.

  35. A fantastically condiscending press release from Ferrari…again.

  36. Apparently they have renamed it the f180 degrees, after the number of about faces done in renaming it.

    Becoming a bit embarrassing isn’t it.

    1. HounslowBusGarage
      5th March 2011, 11:17

      180 degrees, eh?
      My cookbook describes that as “a slow oven”.

  37. We weren’t the ones thick enough to give it such an awful interim name in the first place. Three goes at it and they still don’t realise F-Italia 150 would satisfy the legal and aesthetic problems.

    Ironically enough I saw an advert for a Ford F150 last night :D

  38. How about Naming it ⓕ150?

    1. While trying to figure out how in the world to even type the ゜symbol, I came across the ⓕ symbol.

      1. ⓕ①㊿

        This one’s kind of cool because it makes the f1 stand out. I couldn’t do it with a circled 0 because there wasn’t one. But this could have been a feasable solution because it appears that the internet recognizes these characters, so the media could actually use them.
        But just like the degree symbol. It is just a pain to have to copy and paste it when you want to use it. I think that many writers are not going to take the time and just write Ferrari 150 or even F 150.

      2. My bad! I accidently wrote the ‘ ° ‘ symbol when I meant to type an ‘ ◦ ‘… no wait, that’s not correct either. My eyes are getting old and I have trouble seeing it anyway….

  39. Ford may not realize it, But Ferrari just told Ford To F-off.

  40. The Ferrari 150(Italian th) web site is still http://ferrarif150thitalia.ferrari.com/
    There’s even a link to it right above this Horse Whisperer’s column – it’s not strictly a press release.
    I suggest more lawyers fees be ordered up immediately.

  41. The next step in this renaming saga could be F@#$ing 150.
    What a farce!
    Thinnest vs thickest people.
    Just can’t believe it.

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