Adam Levine has filed a lawsuit against a classic car dealer for allegedly selling him a $1 million fake version of a rare 1971 Maserati.
The “Maroon 5” frontman traded in two of his Ferraris for prolific car dealer Rick Cole’s 1971 Maserati Ghibli 4.9-liter Spyder, only to discover the high-end vehicle wasn’t the real deal, according to the federal lawsuit filed in California. last week.
The 43-year-old pop star’s suit says Maserati only made 25 Ghibli Spyders with the 4.9-liter engine “making this car … extremely desirable and valuable in today’s classic car market.”
The “This Love” singer traded his 1972 Ferrari 365 and 1968 Ferrari 365, worth a combined $950,000, with Cole for the allegedly rare Maserati and $100,000 on January 11, 2021. according to court documents.
The terms of the deal had been proposed by Cole, who has sold cars to celebrities including Jay Leno and the late Frank Sinatra, the previous month, according to the filing.
But when the “Moves Like Jagger” crooner tried to market the limited-edition car to Autosport Designs, he learned that the car dealer had already sold a ride with the same VIN number as the one Levine obtained from Cole, according to the lawsuit.
In fact, the Maserati with that VIN had been sold several years earlier to British luxury car collector Clive Joy and was “in the care of legendary race car driver Christian Traber,” the filing alleges.
“Subsequent inspection and investigation revealed that the vehicle is not genuine,” court documents allege.
“Cole never disclosed any of this … withholding this information in order to make substantial money from the sale,” the suit charges.
Because the Maserati’s identity was clouded, its value was “well below what was being paid” by his trust, called the Adam Levine Living Trust, according to the filing.
The lawsuit says Cole knew about the car’s questionable identity and “took active steps to fraudulently counterfeit the vehicle” to sell it at a “grossly inflated price,” the filing alleges.
Cole allegedly even went to “numerous steps” to try to hide that the car had the same VIN number as another Maserati, and tried to prevent the car from being resold because he “obviously feared that if [Levine’s trust] marketed the vehicle, he would finally know the truth about its lack of authenticity and the corresponding decrease in market value.”
Court documents note that even if the car is an original Ghibli Spyder, it is not the actual vehicle as the VIN it is stamped with. Or the car may be another type of Maserati, the Ghibli Coupe, converted into a Ghibli Spyder, the lawsuit claims.
Cole has refused to reverse the deal or pay Levine the $850,000 purchase price, which the musician’s trust is now seeking to recover in the lawsuit.
Cole did not return a request for comment Thursday.
