Swedish C-Type Replica – The Story Continues

You may have read in these pages in our June and July 2021 issues (or in Paul Griffin’s excellent book ‘The Fast and the Spurious’), the story of the decision by a Swedish court to back Jaguar Land Rover’s copyright claim against a replica C-type builder in Sweden.  

Karl and Ann-Christine Magnusson are the couple that built a replica C-type and planned to build two more for sale.  The original 2021 ruling gave copyright protection to the shape of the C-type, likening it to a work of art.  The court also ordered the Magnussons to destroy the car and pay JLR’s substantial legal costs.

The verdict of the couple’s appeal to this decision has now been handed down, reversing the order to destroy the car and overturning the issue of costs by ordering JLR to pay some £800,000 costs to the Magnussons.  However, this does not give carte blanche to other replica builders, as the Court of Appeal did not overturn the ‘copyright as a work of art’ judgement, it simply found that the replica was built for private use and therefore not subject to the same copyright regulations than if it had been built as a commercial enterprise.

According to Magneto Magazine’s reporter Elliott Hughes, JLR declined to reveal whether it plans to appeal the ruling in favour of the Magnussons, with a Jaguar spokesperson saying “Jaguar Land Rover takes the protection of its intellectual property very seriously, and reserves the right to protect it from those intending to infringe it for profit.”  JLR itself is actively involved in creating continuation cars and replicas of past Jaguar models for sale.