Note to sellers of cloned collector cars: Not only do you have to worry about facing criminal charges for misrepresenting a cloned car, but there’s also the very real possibility of having to answer to a civil lawsuit should you get caught. And if you lose, as in the recent case of an Australian couple sued for selling a faked car, you may even have to refund the difference between a real and fake car to the unlucky buyer.
Late last year, Judge Clive Wall in the District Court in Southport, Queensland, ordered Joanne and Geoff De Rome of Gold Coast to pay AUS $108,394.04 (about U.S. $107,200) to Daniel Sammut, a Sydney-based graphic designer who bought (what was advertised as) a 1969 Ford Falcon XW GT from the De Romes. According to the lawsuit that Sammut brought against the couple, they had bought the car in July 2006 for $18,000, then in the fall of 2007 advertised it for sale as a matching numbers all-original Falcon XW GT for $143,000. Sammut answered the ad, flew to inspect the Falcon in person (twice, the second time with his paint and body guy to inspect the car for rust), and checked the Falcon’s VIN against Ford of Australia’s records to make sure it was a legitimate car. Once the VIN checked out, he negotiated a sale price of $90,000 with the De Romes in October of that year and trailered it back to Sydney.
Built in 1969 and 1970, the Falcon XW remained based on the U.S. Ford Falcon, but had been extensively re-engineered for Australia and New Zealand. Base versions could be had with six-cylinders or 302-cu.in. V-8s, while the high-performance GT version added racing stripes, an offset hood scoop and a 291hp 351 Windsor V-8. Of the more than 105,000 XW Falcons that Ford built, 2,287 were GTs, and it was the GT that enjoyed rising prices among Australian collector car enthusiasts in the pre-recession 2000s.
Two years later, when Sammut attempted to sell the car, it came to light that the Falcon was not an authentic GT. Instead, somebody had taken a non-GT 1970 Falcon XW and replaced its firewall-mounted VIN with one from a 1969 Falcon XW GT (JG33JC37792); a later X-ray examination of the firewall showed that the area around the VIN tag had been cut and welded back together. Who exactly performed the cloning work remains undetermined; the De Romes claimed they did nothing to the car while they owned it save for an engine rebuild and camshaft replacement. According to expert testimony given to the court, a non-GT Falcon XW is worth between AUS $10,000 and AUS $15,000, compared to the current value of a Falcon XW GT, about AUS $65,000 to AUS $70,000.
Sammut, who apparently was unable to sell the Falcon or bought it back when it was revealed to be a fake, held on to the car and sued the De Romes for breach of contract, asking for the difference in value between what he paid for the car and its current value. Adding in the expenses he incurred traveling to see the car and towing it to Sydney as well as interest on the amount for those two years and court costs totaled AUS $108,394.04. The De Romes – who the judge determined likely didn’t know the car was a clone – appealed the ruling, but abruptly withdrew that appeal late last week.
It’s believed the De Romes have less than a month to file civil suit against previous owners of the Falcon for misrepresenting it to them before the statute of limitations runs out.
photo credit: 2012 hemmings.com
text credit: 2012 Dan Strohl via 2012 hemmings.com via Lindsay Wilson
