Ferrari Leaves Its Mark on a Chinese Wall – Literally

Ferrari is currently doing damage control after a PR stunt brought about a ton of bad publicity. The stunt included a driver doing dontus on top of an ancient wall in the Chinese City of Nanjing to celebrate 20 years of Ferrari in Japan. The problem? The tire marks it left.

Most everyone understands that any historical site is sacred to that civilization and no one takes it more seriously than the Chinese.  The wall in question was built around 600 years ago during the Ming Dynasty. And while reports have it the wall was run down and isn’t really being properly taken care of, it is still a historical site.

The problem for Ferrari is not just the tire marks, but the issue of annoying the Chinese population. China is a huge market for most manufactures and Ferrari knows this.

Ferrari did issue a statement that the incident was not authorized and that some of its employees from a local dealership are responsible.

One interesting thing to note is that many Chinese view the Ferrari as a car only for the rich (and most American’s share that view?). Now a car for the rich isn’t a new thing, yet Chinese typically associate being rich with being corrupt. So, the Ferrari is a rich car for bad people. Not quite the image Ferrari is looking for to sell its cars and combine that with this stunt, things are not good in China for the Italian automaker.