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MG MGA - 'Safety Fast' Logo Stolen

I saw a Ford Fusion ad in Newsweek and online: http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/fusion/

the headline for it is "Safety. Fast." I could not believe my eyes. Our creed, our mantra, our life's blood taken by Ford and used to describe a Fusion!!!
Is there an MG entity that can stop this trade mark thievery?
Steven B

The bastards. I suppose they figure they changed it with the period in the middle. I wonder how "Safety Fast" translates into Chinese? You know, Pontiac stole the MGA grill and the octagon back in the '80s. They are still using the grill (look at the Solstice) but I think they gave up the octagon. There may have been pressure from MG/Rover back then. Do you suppose anyone at Nanjing pays attention to stuff like this? They certainly should.

Ken
k v morton

Well, Jaguar stole the slogan Grace, Space and Pace from the 1936 MG SA and I don't think anything was done about that.

Malcolm
Malcolm Asquith

Sadly, the Focus is probably faster and safer than the MGA.
James Johanski

Do you suppose someone at Road & Track would be interested to raise awareness of or look into the apparent misuse?
Steve K

Could also post this under the "MG Car Company" subject under this BB. Anyone know if it's possible to link threads across the two subject areas?
Steve K

Interesting. I also look on a website dedicated to E-types and they where bullied by Ford (via a law firm) into removing merchendise utilising names, images etc. that could be linked to Jaguar. The story raised the same comment from some other sites.
You would therefore think they would check before swiping someone elses tagline?

Neil
Neil Purves

I thought the MG slogan was "Safety Fast!". Note the exclamation mark.

They may have thought that the full stop and missing exclamation may be sufficiently different, but more likely whoever came up with it probably wasn't old enough to remember.
Dan Smithers

My guess is that "Safety Fast" as used by MG was never trademarked, so...

G Goeppner

The thought of a Chinese company suing an American company for copyright infringement is just too ironic to even talk about.
Darian Henderson

As long as Ford don't decide to sue the MGCC for using their tradmark.
Dan Smithers

Put off by Ford's use of this marketing slogan? Rather than just fuming about it on this BBS, why not let Ford know your feelings by emailing them from here https://secure.ford.com/servlet/Satellite/footer/contact-ford/contact-us-email?contactMainTopic=SalesAdvertising
Andy Bounsall

Safety Fast is also the title of the MGCC monthly magazine (and has been for many many years) and if you read the masthead on one of the inside pages it is a copyrighted magazine. I would assume that applies to the title also.

George Herschell
George R Herschell

Under UK law the magazine title is, I think, probably not relevant. Different things, in this case a magazine and a car can share a name. Back in the late 1970s (or so) a company called Dutton were making a kit car called the Sierra. Along came Ford (yes, it's them again) with a new mainstream car called the Ford Sierra. Tim Dutton-Wooley (I think that was his name) objected. Ford offered money. Dutton refused and it went to court. The outcome after several layers of appeal was a tie. The ruling was that a kit car and an assembled car were not the same thing and there was no reason in trademark law why they couldn't have the same name.

The result was a car called the Ford Sierra and loads of publicity for Dutton. I seem to remember that they even managed to get their stand at the British Motor Show placed next door to Ford's.
Malcolm Asquith

Unless Safety Fast! is a registered trademark, it's just a phrase IMHO. Like Sierra is just a Spanish word.
Ddraig

This thread was discussed between 13/12/2007 and 18/12/2007

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