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It's a quintessentially American story... investing enormous amounts of time, energy, resources, and innovative spirit into disproportionate retribution for a petty insult from a highbrow snob.

As a former Ford engineer and lifelong Motor City boy, I definitely have to go see this one. :) 

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On 6/11/2019 at 9:12 PM, renegadeleader1 said:

Never forget, the Ford GT40 exists solely as a giant F*** YOU to Ferrari for them pulling out of a merger because the euro trash thought Ford was too low brow and beneath them.

That's not what really happened though. Ford had international racing aspirations and sought to buy Ferrari for their technical expertise in motorsport, as well as for the sales potential and cachet of the Ferrari brand. Enzo was fully on board with the idea of a sale, however he wanted to keep the racing arm of the company as that was his true passion. Selling Ferrari road cars was just an expedient for Enzo's ability to go racing, and he made no secret of it. Sale of the road car brand to Ford would bootstrap his racing business. During negotiation for the sale to Ford, it developed that both Enzo and the Ford execs had arrived at very different conclusions regarding the terms of sale. The lines of communication had obviously been crossed in the lead-up to the sale.

What was to become the GT40 was an inevitability when Ford had determined to go sportscar racing. If they weren't going to be doing it with Ferrari, then it was going to be someone else instead. Ford partnered with Lola in the UK, and the rest is history. Now, while there were definitely feelings on both sides of the Ford-Ferrari debacle that either party had been snubbed, those did not really bear into the basic motivation for Ford to go racing. It was no doubt icing on the cake for Ford however to ultimately be able to contest and beat Ferrari at its own game.

Edited by Hiriyu
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
On 6/12/2019 at 12:12 AM, renegadeleader1 said:

Never forget, the Ford GT40 exists solely as a giant F*** YOU to Ferrari for them pulling out of a merger because the euro trash thought Ford was too low brow and beneath them.

Incorrect, Enzo pulled out of the deal because the way it was written Ford got veto power on the Ferrari race team choices (what series to run, what drivers to hire, etc). Enzo was in the business solely to race (he didn't even want to make road cars). So much so that when he died he was effectively broke because he plowed all of his money back into the Ferrari race program. He liked the racing side THAT MUCH. So when Ford wouldn't back down on the race team veto power, Enzo walked. Good for him.

 

Edit: looks like @Hiriyu beat me to it.

Edited by sqidd
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  • 2 months later...

Just got back from watching the movie.

It was a solid film with some fun banter and bits, but it felt a little heavy-handed with the antagonist stuff.

They probably should have called the film "Miles & Shelby" instead.  Still, it was an absolute treat to watch the GT40 and the Ferrari roaring in action.

I probably did spoil a lot of the movie for myself by watching the more detailed documentary, "The 24 Hour War" a few weeks ago.

But I enjoyed Ford V Ferrari nonetheless.

 

P.S.--They should have stuck with the 60's rock soundtrack for the TV trailers, instead of using "Feel It Still."

Edited by Mog
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On 11/30/2019 at 10:17 PM, Mog said:

It was a solid film with some fun banter and bits, but it felt a little heavy-handed with the antagonist stuff.

"Truth in television", as it were... both in terms of the bruised egos on the part of Henry Ford II and Enzo Ferrari, and in terms of the antagonism between Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca.

As Iacocca himself famously put it, "If a guy's over 25% jerk he's in trouble, and Henry was 95%."

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I was thinking more about the Leo Beebe stuff in the film, more so than the Enzo vs. Ford II stuff.

From what I’ve read, I understand Enzo didn’t like Ford having final say on the racing side of things, which pretty much killed the deal.

They kinda portrayed that in the film, but they muddied the timeline to (inaccurately) show that Ferrari used the Ford negotiations to squeeze Fiat for more money (which wasn’t the case in real life).

The film also tried to lean more into Shelby and Miles being “maverick geniuses” bucking against Ford corporate culture than the actual collaborative process it really was.

Again, it was probably done for entertainment purposes.  But it doesn’t kill the film.

If anyone’s looking for more info. or a more in-depth story into the rivalry/history, I strongly recommend watching “The 24 Hour War” documentary on Netflix.

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