Man hand-builds Lamborghini Countach, from scratch, in his own basement | Hacker News Reader

Man hand-builds Lamborghini Countach, from scratch, in his own basement

carscoop.blogspot.com

89 pointsnickb42 comments

This could serve as a great example of illustrating the difference between theft and copyright infringement.

Theft would be stealing somebody's Lamborghini. Copyright infringement is building your own.

The standard argument against copyright infringement is that Lamborghini lost a sale by him building his own. However, how likely is it that he would have bought a Lamborghini if he could not build one?

I'm not sure that this is a great example, because it muddies the difference between trademarks, copyrights, and patents (i.e. there may be issues with all three here, and maybe the biggest issue is on the trademark side).

I agree. Copyright protects original works of authorship. A car is not an original work of authorship. A picture of the car is...

And I agree about trademark being the biggest issue, perhaps coupled with infringement on design patents held by Lamborghini.

No matter what this guy has an extremely strong personal use defense. He has zero effect on the market and is not distributing.

A car is not an original work of authorship. A picture of the car is...

Why not? A car is a sculpture which just happens to be banged out of sheet metal instead of carved out of marble.

Admittedly it's hard to think of a Toyota as a sculpture, but a Lamborghini is definitely one. And a damn lot better looking than most of the sculptures you'll see in galleries.

Good point.

I stand corrected. Lamborghini and Toyota would have valid copyrights in their design, even if the Toyota is relatively boring.

Personal use defenses still stand however...

Actually it doesn't have a single thing to do with copyright as it isn't a creative work, it's solely under a patent. As long as he doesn't go around calling it a "Lamborghini Countach" he isn't breaking any trademark laws.

Finally a patent only extends to cover something that is in itself patentable. Nintendo is taking forever to get patents on it's DS game cartridges because they're based off of an SD card. If its not found to be useful or inventive then it's not patentable.

Inherently most vehicles are non-patentable as they all serve an identical purpose and relatively few are at all inventive.

Quite simply a patent can be invalidated by someone simply inventing it themselves, which turns something from 'original' to 'obvious' and thus non-patentable.

Vehicle patents are very complicated to enforce, namely because if anyone ever tries to enforce one they can actually end up getting it invalidated (which in patent law, abolition happens more than enforcement). Lamborghini might not be able to enforce a single patent because a court might find it an obvious improvement over Henry Ford's original patent or is outright patent infringement of Fords. It's a serious lose-lose business.

> Inherently most vehicles are non-patentable as they all serve an identical purpose and relatively few are at all inventive.

I would guess Lamborghini is one of the few that does. Look up "design patent" in wikipedia: "a patent granted on the ornamental design of a functional item". If the shape and components of a top sports car don't meet this description, it's hard to imagine what would.

In fact, it's not too hard to find automobile patents, e.g., http://www.google.com/patents?id=XR87AAAAEBAJ (DeLorean) or http://www.google.com/patents?id=TvZ7AAAAEBAJ (Lotus?) -- but these patents seem to have a 14-year term, so even if Lamborghini did patent this shape, the patent (at least in the USA) has probably expired by now.

Followup: looks like the Countach is http://www.google.com/patents?id=y9EpAAAAEBAJ -- patent number D324007, granted Feb 18, 1992 to Chrysler for a period of 14 years.

Well, that's interesting. Looking further into it, the Countach had been built since 1974, but they never applied for this US design patent until Lamborghini was bought by Chrysler in 1989. By 1992, when it was actually granted, the Countach had already been discontinued.

Wait... looking at the pictures again, I'm pretty sure that's actually the Lamborghini Diablo -- that would make more sense with respect to the timing, since it was made from 1990 to 2001.

Well I suppose most sports car designs do fall into unique looks, so I understand how they'd be able to patent the exterior design, but the machine inside would likely never hold up in court.

If the guy had built an old sedan he wouldn't have a worry in the world about the exterior design as the amount of chassis sharing between companies they're all inherently the same. I do believe you're right though, the patents on the 'ornamental design' seem valid, but as you stated virtually any vehicle design patent seems invalid if it was made before 1994.

I'm wondering if vehicle manufacturers allow these patents to die off after 14 years to allow people to rebuild classics. I mean what would the public reaction be like if Ford sued someone for patent infringement because they fixed up a classic Mustang and couldn't get all the Ford manufactured parts.

There are lots of patents on car parts, for example intermittent wipers or a way of connecting the door to the frame of the car. I'm pretty sure Lamborghini has a few patents like that around.

> Quite simply a patent can be invalidated by someone simply inventing it themselves, which turns something from 'original' to 'obvious' and thus non-patentable.

Just because an invention is re-invented, or invented independently more or less at the same time, does not mean it is unpatentable, obvious, or that an already granted patent is invalid. At most it is evidence of obviousness.

In fact rediscovery can be indicative of utility of the patent, which is a requirement too.

I'd venture to guess it's not copyright infringement provided he doesn't sell it.

Not really. He still had to go through the process of creating something. He still needed to buy and assemble materials. He didn't just borrow someone's Lambo and throw it in a matter replicator.

In copyright infringement cases, people are making exact duplicates without having to work to produce those duplicates. When someone makes a copy of a picture/song/program, they get all of the benefit without having to reward or acknowledge the effort that went into producing the original.

This guy is more like a cover band than Napster.

In most cases you still need to pay money to the songs author to legally be a cover band. The way things are setup he probably broke the law in such a way that he can get away with it. (AKA, they are not going to sue because it's good press and they might sell logos / parts to other people doing this.)

Just a quick note: The amount of work or effort which went into producing a work is not legally relevant to its status under copyright. This, for instance, is why mere lists of facts are not copyrightable. In Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel... ) the "sweat of the brow" doctrine was soundly dismissed.

Also there's a big difference between somebody spending a few moments with DVD Shrink and this guy spending 17 years on his Lamborghini clone.

Exactly. If instead of just copying a DVD, you hired actors, cameras, lighting and props and made a short-by-shot remake of your favourite movie, and then promised not to make any further copies of it, you'd be analogous to this guy.

Or, I'm reminded of that guy in that Borges story who spends his whole life trying to rewrite Don Quixote from scratch.

It's actually possible to do this with 1st generation Camaros (1967-69). Someone thought ahead and saved the original tool and die casts before GM destroyed them. Some googling will find you sources for parts: from frame and body to seats adn trim. From what I've read, it costs somewhere in the realm of 12-20k. Not bad for a clone of what is the most fantastic American muscle car to ever be made with modern reliability.

12-20k + how many man hours? More for me, all this programming doesn't help my mechanical skills :).

Assembling a batch of nice fresh parts is a lot easier than you think. Unless you have to assemble/rebuild the whole engine by hand, you will probably spend more time waiting for the paint to dry than you will putting it all together.

Not necessarily; ever put together one of those Saga electric guitar kits? I've spent maybe 5-10% (out of maybe 15-20 total build time) tweaking and adjusting, finding they didn't drill all the holes in the right places, etc.

There's a company (http://www.ultimasports.co.uk/canam/index.html) that sells kit super-cars. According to them it takes 40 - 80 hours to put together what is essentially a car that is 95% as good as some Italian machine but at 10% of the cost. Not bad considering what you are getting.

That's someone who doesn't let anything, including his basement, get in his way.

After seeing the movie tomb raider I became obsessed with Lara Croft and hand built a detailed model in my basement. I think I'll keep it down there.

at least give us the formula for it.

To me the coolest part would be the ramp and the new door in the basement. Ordinary Ken slips down to the basement of his ordinary suburban house and, like the bat cave, a Lambo comes roaring up out of the secret lair! Sweet.

I think this is kind of a shame. The guy has insane amounts of motivation, insane skills, and even funding for his project, yet he makes a copy of something else.

Seems all he was lacking was a great original idea.

I don't think he was looking for an original idea. Ideas are overrated and cheap anyway.

Seems all he was lacking was a great original idea.

I dunno. Maybe he wasn't lacking it? Maybe he had one and it wasn't what he wanted? Maybe what he wanted was a Lamborghini?

if I was hand building a car from scratch I'd try for something a little bit more exotic. Fiero kit car Coutnachs are all over the place(not really, but its a pretty common kit).

Personally I'd go for something like an F50, because the kit cars for those usually look like ass because the dimensions are way off since the donor cars are shorter.

But still huge props from the guy, it probably took him 5-6 years to finish this(unless he was doing it full time)

The post says 17 years - definitely not an easy feat.

ah..makes sense that its not an F50 then...they were around from 95-97, so they weren't around when he started. F40s were around since 87, but I bet the behind the scenes prep work for the Countach took him a couple of years too so they were probably not around as well.

"Once he finished the car there was one itsy-bitsy problem; the fact that the faux Lambo was built in the basement meant that there was no conventional way to take it outside of the house..."

That's some extreme lack of foresight...

For a dude who builds a super car, by hand, mostly by himself, it is merely a technicality.

Cool...still, I couldn't help but think that having to cut a large hole in the foundation to get it out showed something of a lack of planning and foresight. :-(

That's so badass! This car has always been one of my favs.

Is that wood?

The wood is only there while fashioning the sheet metal for the body. The wood was then removed and replaced with the frame and suspension from a Corvette.

Check this out: http://www.kiengineering.com/Inventory.html

This is his site and has bigger pics. You'll see how he used the wooden frame.

That is one ugly car. Bad taste. I would rather build a Porsche 911.

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