SHAMBORGHINI
Garage busted for churning out fakes
Brazilian cops have slammed the brakes on a garage manufacturing bogus sports cars, including phony Lamborghinis and Ferraris that looked like the real thing on the outside but had Chevy guts.
Spurred by overseas complaints from the Italian companies behind the authentic supercars, police in the southern state of Santa Catarina raided the fraud factory this week and discovered eight vehicles in varying stages of completion.
“Some were half-ready, some were just being started,” Detective Angelo Fragelli told The Guardian of the rides.
Though the cars were outwardly eye-catching — bearing convincing emblem badges and logos stitched into the seats — the beauty was only hood-deep.
“The motors were much less powerful” than real Lamborghinis and Ferraris, Fragelli said, noting that the engines were actually scavenged from cars including a Chevy Omega and an Alfa Romeo.
The knockoff autos were being sold through social media for about $45,000 to $60,000, a sliver of what the real McCoy would cost.
The raid came after a Brazilbased law firm saw the ads and tipped off Lamborghini.
“This is a company that has been investigated for some time,” a lawyer with the firm, Bruno Aribondi Brandi, told the newspaper.
“We also collected information from dissatisfied customers,” he said.
Cops said that the shop was skirting copyright laws.
“It is a crime against intellectual property because of the use of the logos and the use of the industrial designs,” said Fragelli.
Two men — not named in reports but identified as a father and son — have been charged with intellectual-property offenses.
But the elder man insisted to The Guardian that everything was above board — and that his business would still fill orders for their “artisanal cars.”
“We did not close,” the alleged car counterfeiter said. “There are cars being made for customers there and our commitment is to finish these cars.”