Tuesday 24th March 2015

Porsche tells Aston 'GT3 is ours'

Porsche claims 'GT3' badge as its own; Aston accordingly shrugs and rebadges hot Vantage to GT12

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Aston Martin has renamed its new track-focused Vantage GT3 after Porsche cried foul of the use of the GT3 name.

Porsche says 'we own GT3 - hands off!'

The £250,000 Aston, launched in Geneva at the beginning of the month, is now called the Vantage GT12, despite Aston being convinced that Porsche does not own the rights to the GT3 name on road cars.

"Porsche claims it has exclusive rights to use GT3 to describe such road cars for public sale. We don't share their view," Aston Martin said in a statement. But boss Andy Palmer - profiled today on PH - said in a Tweet he didn't want to get involved in a costly legal battle with the VW-owned firm. "We are small independent company and need to spend £ creating the best-of-best cars, not paying lawyers," he said.

Porsche has used the GT3 name since 1999 for its track focused 911 model, and its claim on the name has some credibility in that it pre-dates the GT3 European Championship series, which started in 2006 to allow amateur racers to compete in near-production sports cars.

Aston can race in GT3 but can't name a car after it

But then the name had been used before, specifically by Lotus, which launched the 2-litre turbocharged Esprit GT3 in 1996. And the GT3 name (with an R attached) is also used by Porsche stablemate Bentley for its on hardcore version of the Continental GT.

Whatever the strength of Porsche's claim on the name, its tactics have worked. After all this is a company that last year made £2bn in profit, whereas Aston Martin in all likelihood made a loss, as it did the previous two years. You certainly wouldn't want to go into battle with those financial odds stacked against you.

The Aston statement makes this clear. "Rather than distract ourselves having a naming disagreement with Porsche and the VW Group, we would prefer to focus our energy and investment on the car and on making sure our customers receive the best possible Aston Martin."

Backdated claim against Lotus to follow?

So the car is now called the GT12 after the 600hp V12 engine powering it. All 100 cars were sold before this name storm blew up, but Aston doesn't think owners will mind. "We just informed them at the end of last week and we don't expect anyone to have an adverse reaction," a spokesman said.

 

 

[Monty Python]

Petty really - as if it makes a bit of difference to the people who buy these cars. Should have called it the GT11.

[V8Dom]

what a load of bull.

Looks like VW have nothing better to do.

i suppose the GT3 race series is going to be VW beetles now not GT3 race cars like Bentley, Ferrari and Astons.

[mrclav]

Agree with the above. I mean, is Porsche going to lose sales to Aston? Doubtful.

[richs2891]

Peugeot did the same to Porsche many years ago when Porsche launched the 911, it was to be called the 901.

GT600 would have been a better name in my eyes for the Aston.

[Moonhawk]

Petty considering Aston aren't really any kind of competition.

I quite like Aston's response though - to paraphrase:

"Fine, were not getting into an argument, we'll just call it something else [cough]tossers[/cough]"

[psymonr]

Shirley they can't have the rights to the name of a LeMans class (which the V12 Vantage GT3 is part of), this makes no sense, it isn't like they came up with the name! Next they'll be saying no on else can use GT

[FWDRacer]

This paints Porsche in a very poor light IMHO.

Edited by FWDRacer on Tuesday 24th March 15:41

[FWDRacer]

This paints Porsche in a very poor light IMHO.

Edited by FWDRacer on Tuesday 24th March 15:42

[Gorbyrev]

Touche Aston! GT12 sounds great.

[Mr Whippy]

Desperate action from Porsche.

Why so desperate and serious? Makes you wonder.

[Moonhawk]

Gorbyrev said:

Touche Aston! GT12 sounds great.

4x better than GT3

[Studio117]

Purely boils down to protecting their 'copyright' as more recently displayed by ford and ferrari.

If you don't take action to 'protect' it it opens doors for others to use it.

[Moonhawk]

Studio117 said:

Purely boils down to protecting their 'copyright' as more recently displayed by ford and ferrari.

If you don't take action to 'protect' it it opens doors to others to use it.

Do they have it - the article calls it into question especially since the GT3 badge has been used on cars (notably Lotus) long before Porsche started using it.

[Some Gump]

I can see it from both sides - Porsche made a GT3 before there was a race class called GT3 - so want to protect the name.
Meanwhile, Porsche used it AFTER Lotus. The 911 GT2 was also made AFTER the GT2 class was created by the FIA..

Rather than get emotional over it, I suspect it's more a symptom of the "in order to keep a trademark, you have to protect it" law - Porsche et all make millions selling to e.g China, where you can seemingly ignore copyright at will. Porsche need to protect their long term interests in case Geeley make a GT3 that looks like a slightly melted 911 in the future, and want to sell it elsewhere...

[kambites]

Makes Porsche look particularly stupid and petty. I'm pretty sure Lotus were using the GT3 badge on road cars before Porsche were and I'm sure other manufacturers used the denomination before Lotus.

[daytona365]

Petty in a way, but surely 'GT3' has passed into Porsche folklore and brand perception just as surely as say 'Carrera' ?

[matchmaker]

Used to be a gas turbine locomotive:

[Studio117]

I think using it over a number of years and it becoming synonymous with your brand certainly helps your legal argument.

[RobinBanks]

Why would you care? GT3 is a mundane collection of characters that wouldn't mean anything to most people.

I like Aston Martin's reaction "Fine, it's not exactly important anyway."

[Sump]

Lmao, trolling at it's very finest.