Auction House Banned From Selling GTs Without Ford’s Consent
High-profile auction house Mecum Auctions has been punished by Ford in an agreement drawn up in the wake of the ‘unauthorised’ sale of a Ford GT.
The company, which regularly sells whole catalogues of ultra-exclusive and high-value cars in the US, has paid restitutions to Ford’s charity foundation and has been forced to agree not to sell any more Ford GTs without Ford’s explicit consent. It can’t even accept the consignment while a two-year period from the point of delivery still lasts, according to a report by MotorAuthority.
Legal action has been in progress for nearly a year after Mecum Auctions sold a 2017 GT at an Indianapolis event. Ford tried to stop the sale at the time but was ruled by a judge to have done too little, too late. The sale went ahead, after which Ford’s lawyers swapped to their big-boy pants and got serious.
Another condition laid down by the blue oval, presumably in exchange for dropping the lawsuit, is that Mecum has to tell Ford about any GT that comes to it from an owner who is not the original one less than two years after the car’s delivery.
The silver car, which was originally owned by a John W. Miller, then Michael J. Flynn, who auctioned the car through Mecum, isn’t the only one to be sold before its allotted time. WWE superstar and aspiring actor John Cena sold his GT after just two weeks.
A nasty legal wrangle ensued, first with Ford suing Cena, then Cena defending himself robustly before Ford then sued the dealer that bought and re-sold the car from Cena and eventually Cena apologised and settled with the company.
Comments
Someone is acting petty
Ford need to.let this nonsense go about who is the “right person “ to own the GT. How about you just let the right person be whoever the hell can afford one and wants one. The end.
I somewhat understand controlling who.buys it new, but after that it should be out if their hands. Don’t they have more important things to worry about?
I get where they’re coming from, to protect the cars immediately being flipped or something. (Apparently “immediately” means “two years”)
well, they do at least put up an effort to stop “car flippers” from keeping these car in an air controlled chamber for business investment. We want to see these cars driven on the street.
Better yet, they should have not make Ford GT so number limited in the first place.
You’re kind of right there, but “flippers” tend to buy and sell high demand, limited supply vehicles with a spread out delivery, not keep them in a controlled environment for extended periods. Often they will drive the car hard and with little mechanical sympathy during their short ownership period, as any issues to arise from this will only emerge after they have sold and moved on, becoming a blight for the buyer. Flippers rely on people missing out on, or being too impatient to wait for the spread out delivery, for them to make their money back when they sell the car they have abused.
This is the type of behavior that Ford has tried to combat with this policy.
They want their cars to go to status symbols who have a clean cut image and hasnt said anything homophobic or racist on twitter 5 years ago….
More like The past twenty
Ford showed them, they are going to really been hurt by this
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