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Catching Up in 60 Years How Ford vs. Ferrari Shaped the History of Motor Sports in the 20th Century

Messi vs. Ronaldo. Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson. Ali vs. Fraser. USSR national ice hockey team against Canadians. It is quite appropriate to add to the number of great confrontations in sports history the clash between the Ford and Ferrari racing teams, which took place in the sixties on the best race tracks in the world, and now made it to the cinema – thanks to the new film “Ford vs.

The stories of Ford and Ferrari, two of these famous companies, were directly related to racing from the very beginning. Henry Ford, who invented his ATV in Detroit at the end of the 19th century, was at first very fond of them. In 1901, he even built a 26-horsepower car, in which he won the race against Alexander Winton, the best American ace of the time. It was this victory that prompted major investors to notice the Michigan car manufacturer – and it was she who inspired them to finance the first Detroit Automobile Company, from which Ford, however, later left and which turned into a Cadillac. The rest is known: Henry Ford came up with the idea of using the conveyor belt to create streaming cars, began selling them at unusually low prices, and turned his new firm into an empire with factories around the world. He hadn’t thought about racing since his rivalry with Vinton: there were more important things to do.

But that all changed when his grandson Henry Ford II took over the management of the company. At first, aspiring, like other leaders of major American automakers, to distance themselves from sports, he eventually realized that racing could be a good advertisement for his products. “Win on Sundays, sell on Mondays” – this is the slogan Henry Ford II adopted and decided to invest in a special department that would deal only with races.

The most prestigious competitions of the 1960s were the so-called survival races – races lasting a day or at least 12 hours, during which cars were tested not only for speed but also for strength. The three main ones were considered the “24 Hours of Daytona”, which took place on the famous oval track in Florida, “12 Hours of Sebring”, a race at another Florida circuit, and the legendary “24 Hours of Le Mans” in the south of France. The latter is the most prestigious race, held even before the Second World War and annually riveting (and still riveting) the attention of millions of spectators and car fans. Even outside of the endurance racing universe, Le Mans is considered one of the most important motor racing events in the world: the Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix constitute the so-called Triple Crown of motorsport.

In the early 1960s, Henry Ford II decided that his company should win the best survival races – and wanted to buy a Ferrari. He negotiated for a long time with Enzo, who was already close to agreeing to become part of the American giant and lead their racing direction. But the Americans insisted that at the Indianapolis 500 – America’s premier advertising-profitable race and where Ferrari wanted to compete under its own name – the new company would still only display Ford-branded cars. This problem became a stumbling block – and the deal ultimately failed.

At the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans, a year after negotiations with Enzo, Ford nevertheless brought a car that, in their opinion, could end Ferrari’s superiority in survival racing. It was the GT40 – the most powerful racing car built on the basis of the British “Lola” and in all tests surpassed any cars that were at the disposal of the Italians. And although the GT40’s speed on the Le Man’s track really turned out to be in order, the problem was directly in endurance: none of the Fords finished, and the victory again remained with Ferrari.

Outraged to the extreme by the failure of the GT40, Henry Ford II began looking for people who could modify the car and prepare it for another battle with the Italians in a year. The logical candidate for the position of the new head of the racing department of “Ford” was Californian Carroll Shelby, whose resume included achievements that were very much to the liking of the head of the American auto giant. First, Shelby won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959 driving an Aston Martin, overtaking a squadron of the best Ferrari drivers. Secondly, in the 1964 race that was unsuccessful for Ford, his team with the Daytona Cobra Coop finished fourth – and first in the Gran Turismo class. Fortunately for Ford, Shelby agreed to try his hand at a battle with an Italian rival.

However, in 1965, Shelby and Ford failed again: none of the GT40s announced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans were able to finish. But in 1966, Ford brought to the race a completely new and improved GT40 called the Mark II and took the first three places: in the car that won the competition, the drivers were New Zealanders Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon. Despite the triumph, it was the racers’ nationality – and what they won in a British-built car – that still worried Henry Ford II. For the triumph, it was precise that the American auto industry was not in such a situation. Therefore, an all-American GT40 Mark III with two American pilots, Dan Gurney, went to the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. and A.J. Foyt. And she won – having sent, it seemed, Enzo Ferrari and his Italian pilots to a knockout.

But Ferrari subsequently experienced a recession – and remained Ford’s most important rival on the tracks in numerous racing series (excluding, perhaps, Formula 1, where Ford did not stick). A beautiful reminder of the great opposition of the 60s is considered the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016, exactly 50 years after the Ford pilots took the first three places in the competition. In this race, the main thing was also the confrontation between the Americans and Italians – and the Americans, already led by Edsel Ford II, the son of Henry Ford II, again became triumphant.

Who’s Who in Ford vs. Ferrari

Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon)

Architect of Ford’s victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Shelby was the most famous racer of the 50s, whose main victory was his triumph at Le Mans in 1959. However, to transfer from the car to the chair of the head first of his own team, and then – of the racing department of “Ford”, he was forced by heart disease.

Ken Miles (Christian Bale)

The Briton Miles, renowned for his noble driving style, actually crossed the finish line of the 1966 Le Man’s race first – but ended up in second place due to the FIA rule that determined the photo-finish winner by his place in qualification.

Henry Ford II ( Tracy Letts )

Distinguished in the US Navy, Henry Ford’s grandson, when he took over as president of Ford, had no leadership experience at all, but he had excellent instincts and managed to build a team around him that provided the company with unprecedented profits and success on the racetracks.

Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone)

The patriarch of the world’s most famous brand of racing cars, Enzo was still in his prime by 1966 and tightly managed his company. In 1962, having fired his best engineers due to an internal scandal, Ferrari appointed 26-year-old Mauro Forghieri as head of the racing department – and he made the right decision with this unpopular appointment: Forghieri led Ferrari to all the triumphs of the next decades.

Phil Remmington (Ray McKinnon)

The great mechanic and engineer of the Shelby team, Remmington was entirely responsible for the finalization of the GT40, and a few years earlier had designed the Dayton Cobra Coop, which proved that American cars could fight Ferrari in survival races.

Bruce McLaren (Benjamin Rigby)

Winner of the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans – and the founder of the great Formula 1 team that still bears his name today. The best years “McLaren”, however, their founder did not see: Bruce died in racing tests in 1970.