It’s not just Ferrari that is filing lawsuits over replicas. Porsche is now also involved in such a lawsuit, including a Le Mans winner.
A well-known philosophical issue is the Ship of Theseus. This revolves around the question: if you replace all the parts of a ship one by one, is it still the same ship? This problem of course not only applies to ships, but also to classic Porsches, for example.
Porsche is now involved in a lawsuit about this. They accuse a classic garage from Aachen of selling Porsche replicas as real Porsches. What makes this trial extra interesting: Jürgen Barth is also in the dock, who is said to be an accomplice.
Jürgen Barth has participated in Le Mans no fewer than 13 times in a Porsche and took overall victory in 1977 together with Jacky Ickx and Hurley Haywood. Barth (second from the left in the photo below) also won three classification victories.
Barth is therefore closely linked to Porsche’s racing history and has also held various other positions at the brand. But now the 76-year-old former driver is in court opposite his former employer. This case already started in 2021, but it was stopped shortly afterwards because the main defendant became ill. Now the trial has resumed.
So the lawsuit basically revolves around cars that are or are not replicas. The cars – including a 917 – are said to have sold for millions. According to the plaintiffs, Jürgen Barth was involved in falsifying the history of these cars.
Barth indicated in the lawsuit that historic racing cars are never completely historic. That is of course completely true, but it is not clear to what extent the cars in question were original (or whether they were original at all). Fortunately, we don’t have to judge that either. The German court may do that.
Via: Auto, Motor und Sport
Comments
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mattr say
This is more like the story of Mercedes 300SL restorer Klaus Kienle, thanks to him there were suddenly 2 300SLs with the same chassis number. Was released in 2023 and I think the business went bust shortly after
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mattr say
This story: https://www.autoblog.nl/nieuws/vervalser-licht-rijkelui-op-met-neppe-mercedes-300-sls-3567054
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