As Ford Authority reported yesterday, YouTuber TJ Hunt was recently “banned” from taking his newly-developed Ford Mustang GTD copycat body kit build to the SEMA Show, a move that allegedly stems from The Blue Oval’s efforts to shut that down, apparently. The reasoning behind this is that Hunt’s Ford Mustang GTD Street Hunter body kit looks a bit too much like the real thing, which raises copyright concerns, though he did note that FoMoCo was apparently willing to work with him in that regard. Now, following the release of Hunt’s video outlining this information, it seems as if Ford has instead chosen to take legal action.
Following the release of this particular video, The Drive reached out to Ford and was able to obtain a little more information on the topic, which reveals that Ford sent Hunt a cease and desist letter pertaining to his Ford Mustang GTD lookalike project. “Ford takes its intellectual property rights very seriously,” a Ford spokesperson said. “We have invested significant resources in design and engineering this highly sought after Mustang. Therefore, we must take appropriate action to protect the value and exclusivity for our Mustang GTD customers and to Ford.”
Perhaps even more interestingly, The Drive also reached out to SEMA’s PR department, who didn’t necessarily back up Hunt’s claims that his car was “banned” from appearing at the show, even though he allegedly drove it five hours to Las Vegas and claimed he was turned away. “TJ Hunt is actually present at the 2024 SEMA show. He has been at the show doing autograph signings and displaying his RB26-powered drift Mustang with one of his partners,” a SEMA spokesperson said. “If you watch his videos you will see that his decision to pull displaying his latest build at the show was a voluntary one. We have a great relationship with TJ and value everything he does for the industry and look forward to having him join us at the show for many years to come.”
“A certain large auto manufacturer sent a threatening letter to us about our Street Hunter Mustang project with a vague letter that my lawyers say is baseless,” Hunt noted in his video. “The manufacturer then went a step further to attempt to take down Street Hunter by working behind the scenes to have the Mustang banned from being displayed at the SEMA show upcoming in the next week. We are disappointed, not because we did anything legally incorrect but because a certain large auto manufacturer is doing what large companies do to smaller companies, which hurts since we have respected and loved this auto manufacturer for many years.”
Comment
Can’t copy intellectual property, what would he do if someone took his YouTube content, copied it totally, rereleased it, and earned YouTube revenue from it, he would sue that person for copyright infringement. It’s one thing to do it for yourself as a private individual, but selling it as a product is a different thing.