Story By Steven Cole Smith • Photography As Credited
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen the film “Ford v Ferrari,” skip this next sentence:
Ford wins.
If you have seen the film–and you should if you haven’t–you know that it chronicles the battle between Ford and Ferrari, ignited by a business deal turned sour. Enzo Ferrari hints that he might be willing …
I loved the book when I read it 5 years ago. Sure the movie has a Hollywood spin to it, but it's a great movie that appeals to everyone and that's good for all car guys. The two docs Brock mentioned by Adam Carolla are wonderful as well!
Movies like this would be better if they used the general plot line from reality, but just made the fictional movie and were upfront about it, not using any of the names of the people who are not actually portrayed by the fictional characters. Of course, that wouldn't sell as well...
I didn't personally know Ken Miles . So, I'll have to take John Morton's (not Peter Morton as shown in your picture with Peter Brock) comments as facts.
While I enjoyed the movie story, Damon's representation was not even close to the charachter that Carroll Shelby was. First of all, Damon is much shorter. Second, Carroll was known for wearing covreralls a lot to perpetuate his image as "just a poor ole chicken farmer". We never saw that. Third, Carroll's Texas twang was a big part of how he presented himself. Again, this was missing.
My recollection is that Miles raced the first 427 Cobra at Nassau Speedweek, and hit the only tree near the course. Earned him the name "Teddy Treebagger"
Yes, there are many errors in the film: Enzo never attended races in that time period, the spectators at Daytona 24 hour race were less than the number of people in the pits, and Beebe was not a bad guy as depicted. But, when we had a preview showing for the Simeone Museum in Philly of 400+ guests, the unanimous reaction was positive. And, attendance at the museum has increased significantly as a result of interest from the film. All good!
Is the movie entertaining? Yes, but the real story is so fantastic it does not need the Hollywood twist to be entertaining. My problem is people who do not know the real story walk away from the film stating things as fact because they saw it in the movie. Are some of them insprired to research the truth? I'm sure some are but the vast majority will not and keep repeating the false narrative.
I liked the movie a lot and came here to only say: Thank God it didn't have Tom Cruise in it...would have ruined the movie
Mr Shelby took off his chicken suit for good right after LeMans in 59. As a witness at Sebring in 64/65 he wore regular clothes and a Goodyear lettered jacket. After all he was a distributor for them.
In reply to Jpsbgt :
In John Morton's book, Inside Shelby American, he describes a race event where Shelby went with his girlfriend's idea of having everyone wearing overalls as a kind of gimmick/uniform. They were made by a Hollywood costumer so they weren't work clothes and got chewed up by the end of the day and everyone hated them. It was a little before the GT40 deal when Cobras were the main product.
How accurate? Ford wins, ferrari loses!
Pretty accurate!
it was fun to watch--and as an old man i surprised myself at tearing up at the memory of the days when a bunch of real car guys could simply decide to go after the big dog and win...it even gets to me a little as i write this...what wonderful days...i just wish i'd run the targa florio every doggone year instead of intermittently. one thinks stuff will go on as it has indefinitely
I had the pleasure of working on the film and driving most, if not all, of the cars. One of the best parts was chatting with some of the guys standing off to the side and hearing their stories about working at shelby and the shenanigans that they enjoyed.
I was lucky enought to be stationed at North Island Naval Air Station from 1962 to 1965. Three of us would go up to Riverside for the LA Times Gran Prix in the fall. We would watch the race from the back straight a little past turn 8. Ken would come out of the turn and as he went by, we would hold up our cans of Olympia Gold as a salute. He did see us and the next time he came past he had is left arm up as if he had a can of beer too. Saw him at Willow Springs doing development work on the Sunbeam Tiger. The car had a habit of spinning out, think it got fixed. Dave Anderson
i was diapointed not to see the daytona coupe Cobra's more prominant, they were a big part of the Shelby America story and not featuered much in the film, but the line by enzo that "you are not Henry ford but henry ford the 2nd" rings true. Enzo used the Ford offer to get more money from Agnelli of FIAT
Well, the movie was certainly entertaining, what with fast cars and exotic locations, etc. etc. My dad and I restored a 1955 MG TF 1500 in the early 1960s so Ken Miles was a huge idol, and then when he was chosen to go to Le Mans, that was of course better still! Regarding the Riverside crash, Doug Nye had an interesting column in Motor Sport a while back (Nov 2009) which indicated that Miles accident was in fact caused by a poorly constructed brake pedal mechanism in the frankly still developing J-car. Ford even went to the expense of hiring the versitile Australian driver Frank Gardner to confirm that the transmission failure theory was at least possible. Finally, just a quick comment about Mr. Brock. I grew up with him being referred to as "Pete" Brock, but he seems to have become Peter Brock in the last decade or so. Am I just getting old or???
It is certainly an entertaining movie, a shame there are so many omissions and inaccuracies. Notably that the GT40 was based on the Lola Mk6.
An interesting side, according to Richard Croston's excellent book (Lakeside the early years) in November 1965 Ken Miles with mechanic Ron Butler competed at Lakeside Qld Australia with the works 427 Cobra (chassis # CSX3002).
A lot of locals turned up to see the mighty cobra, and Ken Miles, but as Richard writes the Cobra was not really suited to Lakeside and as I recall qualified 4th behind two Lotus 23's and a locally owned Ferrari 250 LM and retired with suspension failure while running in fifth.
As a 16 year old I was pretty shattered as like a lot of others I expected the Cobra to dominate.
Richard also writes that "Ken was a straight forward Englishman, a gentleman with no airs and graces." "Acquitted himself well and made many friends."
A truly memorable era of motor sport.
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