Image caption Ferrari says there is unlikely to be confusion between its F1 car and Ford's truck

US motor giant Ford has said it is suing Ferrari over the Italian carmaker's use of the name F150 for its new Formula 1 racing car.

Ford argued that the use of the name detracts from its own F-150 brand of best-selling pickup trucks.

It has also said the Ferrari F150 logo looked similar to its own F-150 logo.

But Ferrari has announced that it would alter the name of its new car to "Ferrari F150th Italia" in an effort to avoid dispute.

Ferrari said the new, "complete" name refers to this year's 150th anniversary of Italy's unification.

The luxury sportscar maker said it had written to Ford pointing out that F150 would only be used as an abbreviation of the full name of a racing car project and not as a brand to market cars.

"[F150] never has, nor ever will be used as the name of a commercially available product - indeed there will definitely not be a production run of single-seaters."

Image caption Ford claims that Ferrari wants to profit from the recognition it had built up for its F150 truck brand

"Ferrari believes that its own contender in the forthcoming F1 championship cannot be confused with other types of commercially available vehicle of any sort whatsoever, nor can it give the impression that there is a link to another brand of road-going vehicle.

"Therefore it is very difficult to understand Ford's viewpoint on the matter."

"Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the F150 in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark," said Ford in its complaint to the US District Court in Detroit.