A court in the Netherlands has rejected a bid by Ferrari to have a Dutch Daytona counterfeit scrapped because the quality of the kit car was so bad, nobody would have mistaken it for the real thing.

Italian car manufacturer Ferrari, located in the city of Modena, requested the destruction of a yellow replica of its Daytona model which had been bought in the US by a Dutch man who has a business specializing in kit cars in 2018.

However, Ferrari’s lawsuit that also included a paragraph that demanded recordings of the destruction process has now been rejected by the Hague Court in the Netherlands.

The Ferrari Daytona Spyder, officially designated the Ferrari 365 GTB/4, is a two-seat grand tourer by Ferrari from 1968 to 1973.

The model gained world fame after it made an appearance in the American crime drama TV series Miami Vice that ran for five seasons on NBC from 16th September 1984 to 25th January 1990.

The black replica portrayed in the first two season of the series was based on a Chevrolet Corvette C3 by US bodywork company McBurnie Coachcraft.

In order to protect their Miami Vice-Daytona replica, the Modena-based car manufacturer decided to go to court after the Dutch put their model for sale online for EUR 28,500 (GBP 24,450).

Ferrari representatives filed a lawsuit demanding the replica be destroyed immediately after they spotted the online ad in 2020.

The Dutch kit car was subsequently seized and its destiny was placed in the hands of the Hague Court, which has now finally made a surprise verdict in favour of the car owner.

According to the judges the accused party managed to provide enough evidence of sufficient differences between the replica and the original and therefore found the defendant not guilty of copyright violation.

In addition, the owner was given the replica back, but was asked to remove all Ferrari-related logos due to trademark copyright.

Ferrari has not made any official comments regarding the final verdict by the Dutch court.