TAKING HIM FOR MAROON
Adam: Rare Maserati I got a ‘fake’
Adam Levine has filed a lawsuit against a classic-car dealer for allegedly selling him a fake version of a rare 1971 Maserati worth $1 million.
The Maroon 5 frontman traded two of his Ferraris for the 1971 Maserati Ghibli 4.9 Liter Spyder from prolific car dealer Rick Cole — only to later discover the high-end vehicle wasn’t the real deal, according to the federal suit filed in California last week.
The 43-year-old pop star’s suit says Maserati made 25 Ghibli Spyders only with the 4.9-liter engine, “making such a car . . . extremely desirable and valuable in the current classic-car market.”
The “This Love” singer traded his 1972 Ferrari 365 and 1968 Ferrari 365 — worth $950,000 combined — to Cole in exchange for the supposedly rare Maserati and $100,000 on Jan. 11, 2021, the court papers state.
The terms of the deal had been proposed by Cole — who has sold cars to celebrities like Jay Leno and the late Frank Sinatra — the month prior, the filing states.
But when the “Moves Like Jagger” crooner tried to market the limited-edition automobile to Autosport Designs, he learned the car dealer had already sold a ride with the same vehicle identification number as the one Levine got from Cole, the suit claims.
In fact, the Maserati with that
VIN had been sold several years prior to British luxury-car collector Clive Joy and was “under the care of legendary race-car driver Christian Traber,” the filing alleges.
‘Not authentic’
“Subsequent inspection and investigation revealed that the vehicle is not authentic,” the court documents allege.
“Cole egregiously never disclosed any of this . . . withholding this information in order to make substantial monies on the sale,” the suit charges.
Since the identity of the Maserati was now clouded, its value was “far less than that paid by” his trust, called the Adam Levine Living Trust, the filing says.
The suit says Cole knew about the questionable identity of the car and “took active steps to fraudulently falsify the vehicle” in order to sell it at an “overinflated price.”
Cole allegedly even took “numerous steps” to try to hide that the car had the same VIN number as another Maserati — and attempted to stop the auto from being resold because he “obviously feared that if [Levine’s trust] marketed the vehicle, it would eventually learn the truth concerning its lack of authenticity and corresponding decrease in market value.”
Cole didn’t return a request for comment Thursday.