Ferrari butts heads with US mogul
Preston Henn sues carmaker for refusing to sell him topless LaFerrari
WOULD you sue a car company that decided you were not good enough for one of its cars?
No, seriously; that’s exactly what Fort Lauderdale businessman, former racing driver and noted Ferrari collector Preston Henn has done.
Henn already owns a LaFerrari and the one-off 275 GTB/C 6885 Speciale – which he is not alone in describing as the most valuable car in the world – so he was very upset (we’re being polite here, you understand, this is a family newspaper) when his deposit for a limited-edition LaFerrari Spider, of which just 150 will be made, was declined.
He tried everything he could to get on the list – even sent a deposit cheque for $1 000 000 (R13.92 million) directly to Fiat-Chrysler-Auto (and Ferrari) boss, no-nonsense Canadian Sergio Marchionne, who simply sent it back.
So over the weekend he filed suit against Ferrari in the District Court of Southern Florida for defamation, demanding an amount “in excess of $75 000” (R1.04 million) in damages – and insisting on a jury trial.
The document states, among other things, that “the publication of the statement that Preston Henn is not qualified to purchase a LaFerrari Spider is an untrue statement which harms Henn’s reputation in the universe of Ferrari aficionados and holds him up to ridicule, disrespect and disrepute in his profession, trade, occupation, avocation, and among his friends and business and social associates.”
The point is that Ferrari’s refusal to allocate one of the sold-out LaFerrari Spiders to Henn was contained in private correspondence. Without this suit, nobody in the universe of Ferrari aficionados would have known about it.
Ferrari is not alone in selecting with care the customers to whom it sells its limited-edition cars; Ettore Bugatti famously refused to sell a Type 41 Royale to King Zog of Albania on the grounds that ‘the man’s table manners are beyond belief ’.
- www.motoring.co.za