Harley Davidson is all set up with a dealer in China, but, as we’ve said before, they need to be very careful. A news story is out that a fake Ferrari has turned up. On the difficulty scale, a Ferrari is a lot harder to copy than a Harley Davidson or most any other motorcycle. Blata, the pocket bike company, has had huge problems with fakes being made in China and sold in other countries as genuine, once you move upscale to something with the complexity and rarity of a Ferrari, a motorcycle is child’s play.
I still don’t understand it, with the many millions of intelligent people in China, they would rather copy instead of create. What’s up with that?
Links: Fake Ferrari via Autoblog
The Kneeslider: Harley Davidson Names China Dealer
The Kneeslider: Counterfeit motorcycles seized at Milan show
aaron says
I doubt this is a typical chinese mass produced copy, more likely hand fabricated parts mixed with real ferrari bits. the picture held up in the video looks to be a P style racer, and if six were made, this backs up my theory. If anything, this is an american/british style fake. like the joke goes…. chevy made 12 L88 stingrays, and there’s only 244 left on the road. (insert the correct numbers if you know them, just made them up to get the joke across)
the same thing happened with bikes too, lots of bikes sold as “rocket goldstars” on the vintage market are really modded goldstars with fancy A10 motors…
keith says
China does have intelegent people. they put a cheap price tag, and stupid american companies have extremely short sited perspectives and are looking for yearly or quarterly growth so the jump at the chance to cut manufacturing costs. you sign a short contract with a manufacturing firm in china and send all your intelectual property to them to start production. you help them through yield issues, you help them through cost and supplier issues, and then… OOPS, after a few years when the contract is up (or before) you have completely set up a fully competant competitor. they can change a few things or no things and begin direct competition with you, the company that went after the cheap dollar signs.
Rev says
The reason why China seems to copy many things (in my opinion) is because of their governments lack of control. And, since they are only really beginning to become majorly advanced on a broad scale, it would be much easier for them to copy something then to spend the mass resources it takes to develop a whole new something. Plus, with that lack of control, comes the ability to sell the “faux” items at high costs and to do it without any fear of penalties. Because these companies are behind the shroud that is China, they can get away with it because the company will never be found if any legal trouble occurs. That’s just my opinion, and I’m NOT saying that the Chinese are shady people, it’s just all about money, and no matter where they are, companies will always try to get away with as much as they can just to earn a buck.