Currently reading: Ferrari name change in Ford row
Italian F1 team will rename its new F150 F1 car F150th Italia to avoid a legal dispute with Ford

Ferrari will rename its new F150 Formula One car after Ford said it would sue the Italian firm’s use of the name.

Ford uses the F-150 name for pick-up trucks and claimed Ferrari’s F150 logo looked similar to the one it used. It added that Ferrari wanted to profit from the F150 it had helped to build up and its use would impact on sales of the pick-ups.

But Ferrari has written to Ford saying F150 will only be used as an abbreviation for its new 2011 car and would be changing its full name to Ferrari F150th Italia, in reference to 150 years since Italian unification.

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"[F150] never has, nor ever will be used as the name of a commercially available product - indeed there will definitely not be a production run of single-seaters,” said the Ferrari statement.

"Ferrari believes that its own contender in the forthcoming F1 championship cannot be confused with commercially available vehicles of any sort whatsoever, nor can it give the impression that there is a link to another brand of road-going vehicle. Therefore it is very difficult to understand Ford's viewpoint on the matter."

Ford’s filing to a court in Detroit said: "Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the F150 in order to capitalise on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark.”

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