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Blow For UK Viper

American brand Dodge will mark its debut in British showrooms with the launch of the awesome Viper SRT-10 supercar later this year - but the plan has already run into trouble.

By Richard Yarrow

15th January 2004

That's because the man pictured on the right - Bob Busbridge from Morden, Surrey - has a tiny kit car company based in a workshop in his back garden. Why is this a problem for Dodge bosses? Because his AC Cobra lookalike is called the Viper.

But it doesn't stop there; the issue is further complicated because Busbridge - who's sold only 45 complete cars and 200 self-assembly kits in nearly 20 years of business - doesn't own the Viper name, either. He's been involved in a 12-year legal battle with another man - Kenneth Cook from Bournemouth, Dorset - about who registered it first with the UK Patent Office.

Busbridge explained: "My car is the Cobretti Viper and I got caught in this legal wrangle through my own stubbornness. I always believed I had the rights to the Viper name." Cook's company, Brightwheel Replicas Ltd, has also sold a kit car called the Viper and he thinks the trademark is his. Attempts by Auto Express to contact him failed.

Dodge parent firm DaimlerChrysler knows of both men's claim to the legendary name, so won't be using it in Britain for its 500bhp monster. In 1992, when the company was just Chrysler, it lost a legal battle with Mr Cook about using the word Viper on a car here.

Speaking at the Detroit Motor Show, where Dodge's launch in Europe was announced, Chrysler UK boss Simon Elliott told us: "We'll market the car as the Dodge SRT-10. Everyone knows it's a Viper and for the 30 LHD examples a year we'll sell, it's not worth spending the money to try to buy the name."

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