In early January, we covered the Singer Off-Road Competition Study (or ACS for short) and said it was “as perfect as you would expect” a Safari 911 built by Singer to be. Well, apparently Porsche – specifically its legal team – was not so happy about it. See, about a month after this story was published, Singer contacted us and asked us to replace the press photos originally provided from ACS with versions of the photos that had any and all Porsche logos, including the emblem and the big “PORSCHE” letters that descended on the sides and back, digitally removed.
It turns out that Porsche’s trademark lawyers questioned Singer’s use of, er, the company’s trademarks. And because we are not complete idiots, we comply with the request. Now, however, it seems that Singer is having to step back even further in the launch of ACS because, as noted by Carscoops, all appearances and mentions of the vehicle have apparently been deleted from the company’s website and social media channels.
Notably, ACS is far from being Singer’s first creation to boldly and proudly present the Porsche brand. The incredible DLS, for example, has the signature “PORSCHE” on the back and, for the time being, remains intact on the Singer website. Although, at the time of this writing, all news posts on that site created before the link above appear to have their images removed.
When The Drive asked Porsche about the whole thing, a spokesman replied by email:
“We are enthusiastic at our core and we are proud and excited that our community will continue to thrive, diversify and evolve – with an abundance of creativity and this ensures that cars originally built many decades ago remain on the road and being enjoyed.
The scale and quality of individualization and engineering through specialist companies working on older Porsche cars is extraordinary – we have the greatest respect for the ambition, skill, depth of engineering and sheer inventiveness of this growing industry.
At the same time, we have a responsibility to our customers to ensure that Porsche products – designed and developed by us – can be clearly and easily identified. This can range from an individual component or piece of clothing using our name to entire cars. We do this by ensuring that only products created or licensed directly by us can bear the Porsche name.
In applying this rule, we continually try to reach a fair and balanced compromise, while wishing to see the community prosper, treating everyone who asks – and those we contact – with the same respect and courtesy. From time to time, reminders are needed – however, we are pleased that the Porsche community understands and respects this request. Meanwhile, all of us at PCNA will continue to watch with pride and joy as our cars serve as the basis for the most incredible projects imaginable. “
We also contacted Singer for more comments and will update this story when we have an answer.
To see what ACS was like before Photoshop, here’s Top Gearthe first video he made of the car that remains online and not edited. For now.