Police in Brazil’s southern state of Santa Catarina have apparently just shut down a factory making knock-off Ferraris and Lamborghinis that, based on the photos, actually didn’t look terrible. That’s probably why they came up on the real companies’ radar.
People putting a body kit on a Fiero to make it look like Testarossa is one thing, but, this looks like it was a little more intense of an operation than just some random enthusiast’s backyard project.
In a report from the AP, “Eight partially finished vehicles were seized in the raid, and police said they are investigating how many were made… Monday’s raid followed a complaint by the Italian companies.”
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The shop, which the AP says was run by a father and son, was hawking the cars on social media for “$45,000 to $60,000,” which is a lot less than the list price of the least-expensive new Ferrari (a 488 starts at about $280,000) or Lamborghini (an Urus SUV is near $200,000).
Whether these Fauxrarris and Shamborghinis were being sold as the real deal in an attempt to dupe car collectors who didn’t know better, or just appeal to people who wanted to look richer than they are, is unclear. I’m guessing it’s a little bit of both.
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The AP writeup on the situation is disappointingly vague and I couldn’t find good details in my cursory research, all of which just leads back to the same AP story. What engines were these cars using? Were they totally scratch-built or just bodies built on top of Mustangs or something? Can I still buy one? Just kidding, I’m good, but I really would love to get a closer look.
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If the cars were in fact handmade, it’d be too bad that the people making them couldn’t have just done their own small-batch supercars instead of running afoul of intellectual property laws. But alas, gotta have the hashtag brand for the ’gram.
Hat tip to Steve!
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