'Survivor' Term Comes Under Fire

[toner]

Call them "a survived" car from now on.

[Charley Lillard]

In defense of Dana Mecum. I have met him and he seems like a nice guy to me. It might be something as simple as competing with NCRS. Bloomington has their survivor class and they have been doing it so long it has brought meaning to the term and if I owned the company I might trademark the term also and apparently the patent office agreed with them. Going after Hemmings seems kinda silly but I'm sure there is more to this story. Does Mecum own Bloomington or just do the auctions as part of it ?

[Zedder]

While I think it's a shame that it has come to this, I will be glad to see the term "survivor" used more in line with what Bloomingtom meant when they coined the term with respect to Corvettes. Personally, I'm sick of hearing about "Survivor" cars that have nothing more than "most" of their original paint - otherwise they have been totally "fluffed", "detailed" and "restored". I love truly unrestored cars and think the term "survivor" should be used only for those that are truly "unrestored"

[DaJudge]

I totally agree with you Zedder

[JoeG]

Using the phrase Bloomington Survivor or Bloomington Gold Survivor should be enough for them --since their organization is used in the phrase, which would be easily recognizable-- If I Ran an auction --JOE SMOE'S SURVIVOR CARS---I think people would be able to see the difference------------------------Or change their name to Survivor Gold-----Then give them their patent-----------

[Steve Shauger]

The name of our survivor certification program for the Camaro is Vintage Camaro rather than survivor because of the bloomington groups objection to anyone else using the term survivor.I believe they trademarked the term.

Vintage Camaro was established to provide the appropriate status, recognition and appreciation of the unrestored Camaro.

Most cars that are 30 plus years old show their age and have been restored to some level. Very few are true time capsules. However at this years Camaro Nationals @ Carlisle, Vintage Camaro was treated to several of the best survivor status cars, such as a Red 1969 RS/SSL78 with 12k miles, White 1969RS/SS L48 with 14 k miles to name a few. One of the reasons most original cars are fluffed and buffed in the past was because no one recognized their status as valuable benchmark cars. Instead they were judged against restored cars, so owners fluffed and buffed them to compete(In the above statement I am referring to the Camaro arena). We offer full certifications and partial certification for cars that may have been restored in one or two specific areas.

And yes Mark the term is overly used.


Steve Shauger
Vintage Camaro

[ssl78]

Charlie my understandig is Dana Mecum Bought The whole Bloomington Gold Name. He is able to do whatever he wants with it. That is why it was moved to St Charles IL.

[moparts]

Can't use the word survivor in describing your car......what's next take the word God out of the pledge? (wait they are trying to do that)...bad example....take our guns away? (wait they are trying to do that too)....another bad example.....anyway you get my point.....so who is going to be the survivor moderator on this site?

[Belair62]

Maybe if you don't capitalize the word it's not patented !!

[firstgenaddict]

Let's just call it Survivour with the accent mark.
Or Supervivor for the survivor supercar.
I believe that like I said before they have waited too long to defend their trademark. Because Bloomington did not go after everyone (did they go after anyone?) in the past and defend it, I do not believe that they have a case. I am not a lawyer but did study some trademark and patent law.
If they would have coined a new word or phrase such as "BG survivor" or "Gold Survivor" or Bloomington Survivor I could see the infringment but come on.
Just write the ad as
"69 Yenko 15,000 miles all original paint and interior has survived untouched."
Then it seems as though they really have no case.