[faksta]

Originally Posted by Egg Nog

Wierd... this used to be the "Farboud GTS", the first "Iranian supercar". I guess they figured they could market it better if it was supposedly British, and additionally if it had a fancy quasi-Italian name.

Farboud into Farbio?

It must be one of the strangest moves in recent automotive history; why would you name your company after what could easily be an Italian hair stylist off ITV's Footballer's Wives?

You may well know the history, but in case you do not , here it is. A few years ago Arash Farboud (a current Lusso contributor) started a small company whose goal was to make a rival to the Noble M12. It sounded like a good idea, afterall, Noble, TVR and Lotus had all had some measure of success doing similar jobs. Not too long after the inception of the company most of it was sold off to Chris Marsh, son of Marcos's founder. The last few years have seen bits and pieces of news about the car (called the GTS), but in the meantime Arash started a new company, using his other name as a moniker - Arash Cars was born.

Now at first glance it is conceivable that there could be some confusion between the two companies, they are after all two halves of one name. But when you look deeper under the surface it seems like a very bizarre move for Farboud/Farbio to have made - I'll tell you why.

There are two types of people when it comes to the marketing of these cars - the people who know the name Arash Farboud, and those who don't. Let's start with the first. These people (if you read car magazines or Lusso then you are probably one of them) will know the story behind the two companies and the two different products that they will be offering. By definition there is no confusion - these people already know what is happening.

The second type of person has never heard the name Arash Farboud, and so there is obviously no link to them between the two seperate words Arash and Farboud. Obviously there is no confusion here - why would there be.

I can see that the team at Farbio maybe wanted some identity for themselves, but at the end of the day they are an English company, and will presumably be trading on the heritage that this implies. So why then choose a third, or fourth, rate Italian wannabe name. Boxster and MX-5 move over, we have a new hair-dresser-chariot, and no one has even taken delivery yet.

What were the alternatives? Rumour has it negotiations took place over using the legendary Fangio name. That must be a bullet dodged; there are enough cynical marketing ploys these days without invoking Argentinian driver's names for English cars. Maybe Ferrario was considered too, presumably it would have been even more expensive than Fangio though. Maybe they should have settled on ***** [removed due to threatened legal action] - at least it is relevant.


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