One of the most iconic endurance racing railroad car of all time — the Ford GT40 — came about because of a score between two Titan of self-propelling industry . Sometimes businessispersonal after all .
The story set out in the early 1960s , when Henry Ford II , chief executive of U.S. automakerFord , decided that it would be a impertinent stigmatization move to get involved in auto racing . One fast path to build a report was to take an survive prestigious company with a reputation as a winner , and so Ford approached Italian auto maker Ferrari . The troupe ’s father , Enzo Ferrari , proposed a deal in which Ford would buy a 90 percent interest of the Italian company for $ 18 million .
But at the last here and now , Ferrari had a alteration of heart . As Preston Lerner recounts in his 2015 book"Ford GT : How Ford Silenced the critic , Humbled Ferrari and Conquered Le Mans,“the Italian auto mogul got 2d thought about becoming another sprocket in what he deride as " the tremendous machine , the suffocate bureaucracy of the Ford Motor Company . " He clutch upon a clause in the contract bridge which required Ford to sanction major expenditures as a sight breaker .
Henry Ford II , a member of an esteemed American self-propelled clan , was taken aback by the rebuff . He reportedly told Don Frey , one of his police lieutenant who had manage the failed Ferrari tender : " You go to Le Mans , and beat his posterior . "
That was a tall order . The24 Hours of Le Mans , an autoendurance racethat date back to 1923 , was perhaps the most honored motorsport result on the planet , one in which car drove around an 8.4 - mile ( 13.6 kilometer ) form near the French urban center of Le Mans over and over , with the aim of covering the most space in a day ’s clip . And from the late fifties to the mid-’60s , Ferrari cars dominated the outcome , winning seven of eight backwash between 1958 and 1965 .
To ruin that ascendency , Ford would postulate a exceptional automobile . Ford ’s chief railroad engineer , Roy Lunn , come up with the concept of a two - seater variation machine with a low - slung , shark - like body and a powerful V-8 locomotive engine located between the axles . The design was 156 in long and 40 column inch gamy , which lead to it being dubbed the GT40 . To speed up the ontogenesis , Ford team up up with British race car constructor Eric Broadley and his companionship Lola to work up the auto .
Lerner , the automobile historiographer , explain what made the railcar so innovative : " The Ford GT40 was one of the first epitome mutation cars to to the full take vantage of the benefits associate with a mid - engine design , most notably a slinky aerodynamic shape and benign handling characteristics , " he order via e-mail . " It also demonstrate that a large , but lowly punctuate , engine originally designed to be used on street car could succeed in endurance racing against the most exotic motors in the man . "
Even with those innovations , the GT40 sputter in its initial races in 1964 . That led Ford to reverse over mastery of the racing programme to Carroll Shelby , a former champion racecar machine driver turn designer , who had realise Enzo Ferrari ’s enmity by overreach him at Le Mans in 1959 as a number one wood for Aston Martin .
In 1965 , the Shelby - led Ford squad at Le Mans , drive a new version of the GT40 prognosticate the Mark II , started out solid against Ferrari , only to have its cars forced out of the race by mechanical failures . It was a thwarting defeat , but in 1966 , Ford fix the bugs and came back with even near car . This clock time , the GT40 Mark II not only beat Ferrari , but obliterated its storied dominance , taking first , second and third in the race .
The 1966 finish , this year celebrating its 50th anniversary , elicit some controversy . Ford decided to have two of its cars — one curb Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon , and the other with Ken Miles and Denis Hulme — cross the finish line together , to drive home the point that the GT40 itself , and not the drivers , was the reason for victory . But Miles ' timing was slightly off as he backed off the gaseous state pedal near the terminal , and McLaren ’s car ended up encompass slenderly more space and was credited with the winnings .
Ford turn back the next class with yet another variant of the GT40 , the Mark IV . To rub more salinity in Ferrari ’s wounds , the Mark IV had been designed , mastermind and built totally in the U.S. Again , Ford bested the Italians .
According to Lerner , the Ford GT40 help establish the forcible template for the racecars that would vie at Le Mans for decades to come . But it had an equally unsounded impact in terms of changing the culture of racing .
" This was one of the first prison term a mainstream manufacturer committed itself to a large effort on the international stage , " he articulate . " The modelling it used was providing money and internal R&D resources while farm out the actual racing to professional race team . A half - century afterward , this is the elbow room things still generally work not only at Le Mans but in Formula 1 , NASCAR and other forms of motorsport . "
