Henry Ford II liked to get his own way.
Ford, a.k.a. “The Deuce,” was an automobile pioneer who helped shape the modern automotive industry.
But in the years leading up to the 1960s, the Ford Motor Co. was struggling. GM was crushing Ford in sales and Ford automobiles had earned a reputation for being boring and unreliable.
Henry Ford II from the book The Six Men Who Built The Modern Auto Industry.
Then The Deuce and his executives came up with a bold plan to change the company’s fortunes.
Sell sports cars.
But Ford had no experience in the sports car realm. So, Ford tried buying Ferrari from Enzo Ferrari, “Il Commendatore,” in 1962.
After months of negotiation, a deal appeared to be in place that had The Deuce offering $10 million to buy the Italian motorsports company.
A prideful Enzo blew up the deal at the last minute over a clause the Italian car owner couldn’t stomach.
Ford wanted control over the Ferrari racing team.
According to Forbes.com, Ferrari sent a message to Ford saying the American carmaker built ugly cars in an ugly factory.
Enzo Ferrari (1898 – 1988), the Italian car designer, behind the wheel of one of his cars.
The insult sparked one of the greatest rivalries in motorsport history.
That’s where the Hollywood treatment of the “FORD V FERRARI” rivalry begins – portrayed on the big screen by Tracy Letts (Henry Ford), Matt Damon (Carroll Shelby), and Ken Miles (Christian Bale).
Humiliated, Ford set his mind to creating a Ford Motor Co. racing team with one objective. Beating Ferrari at the prestigious 24 Hours Le Mans race in France — a gruelling 24-hour race Ferrari had dominated for the first half of the ’60s.
His team created the Ford GT40, a car with a V-8 engine that could go more than 320 km/h, according to the Popular Mechanics.
The GT40 was blisteringly fast but also unreliable and dangerous.
24 Hours of LeMans, LeMans, France, 1965. Carroll Shelby stands at the rear of the Ford Mark II prototype that Phil Hill and Chris Amon drove. CD#0777-3292-0630-15.
There were no power brakes or steering and when a driver hit the brakes at the end of a straightaway, it was often too much for ’60s brake tech to handle.
Ford’s investment didn’t pay off initially with the GT40 losing to Ferrari in ’64 and ’65.
Then The Deuce gave Carroll Shelby, previously just a consultant on the project, control over the racing team and car’s construction.
Shelby, a retired racer who started Shelby American Inc. in 1962 — a high-performance motor vehicle development and design firm — brought in British racer Ken Miles, a former tank commander in the Second World War, to head up the racing team.
The team worked on the Ford GT40 — creating a new interchangeable brake system, improving the car’s aerodynamics, and putting the car under severe stress tests.
All the work led to the GT40 MK. II, a car Ford unleashed at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race.
It demolished the competition, humiliating Ferrari who didn’t have a car even finish the race.
Caroll Shelby, who developed the Ford GT40 race car in the 1960s, sits on the hood of a Shelby GT Mustang at a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Ford Mustang at the Nashville, Speedway in Tennessee, April 15, 2004.
Ford Motor Co.’s victory was made more impressive by the fact that three MK. IIs in the race took home first, second, and third place.
In the end, The Deuce had his revenge and the GT40 passed into American automotive race history.
Miles would go on to die in a car crash in 1966 testing a different Ford car. Shelby would live to the age of 89, dying in 2012, but his namesake Ford Shelby — a high-performance variant of the Mustang — rolls off production lines to this day.
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November 18, 2019 at 03:30AM
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