Firstly, if you love cars and wonderful motor racing stories which have now grown into folklore, to quote Molly Meldrum – “Do yourself a favour” and see the new movie ‘FORD v FERRARI’
Academy Award-winners Matt Damon and Christian Bale star in the movie that is based on the remarkable true story of the visionary American car designer Carroll Shelby and the fearless British-born driver Ken Miles. Together they battled corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominance of Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.
Without giving too much away but as a little background to the movie, since the early 60’s Henry Ford II had wanted a Ford to race at LeMans and in 1963, Ford heard that Enzo Ferrari was interested in selling out to Ford Motor Company. Ford then reportedly spent many millions of dollars in audits of Ferrari factory assets and legal fees, only to have Ferrari cut off talks completely at a late stage in the negotiations.
Apparently Enzo Ferrari wanted to remain the sole operator of Ferrari’s motor sport division and was angered when told that if the deal was successful, he would not be allowed to race at the Indianapolis 500 as Ford fielded Indy cars using it’s own engine, and didn’t want competition from Ferrari.
Basically, Enzo Ferrari cut the deal off out of spite and Henry Ford II, out of anger directed his racing division to find a company that could build a Ferrari-beater on the world endurance racing circuit.
Ford then came to an agreement with Lola Cars owner and chief designer, Eric Broadley, who along with ex-Aston Martin team manager John Wyer and Ford Motor Company engineer Roy Lunn combined forces to build what was to become the first Ford GT40 at the Lola factory in Bromley, England.
In May 1964 the GT40 had it’s first race at the Nurburgring 1000 km race and retired with suspension failure, and three weeks later at the 24 Hours of Le mans all three GT40’s again retired. Unfortunately the year didn’t get any better for the Team and after the 1964 Nassau race the program was handed over to Carroll Shelby, and I’ll let the movie take over from here.
Enjoy the following trailers: