Hi Curtis,
The offending trademark was granted to "Safir Engineering" (UK) in
1985... they applied in April, the application was made public in June,
and it was granted in October of that year.
http://www.autonews.com/article.cms?articleId=41173
When Ford asked Safir if they'd please relinquish the trademark (in the
appropriate lawyerese, I'm sure), both parties adopted a fairly
adversarial attitude right out of the box. End result: Nobody wins
except the various legal teams.
Apparently they're still at it:
http://www.canadiandriver.com/news/050315-3.htm
There are a few GT40 owners in Calgary, but I don't know what the
opinion of the GT40 community is regarding Safir vs Ford. Safir started
out doing production of spares and 'continuation parts' the same way
that, say, Sunbeam Specialties has, or Kirkland has with the Cobra, and
they've been building complete cars for twenty years. Seems like they've
got a pretty serious investment in the marque.
Theo
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