A War of Speed

This story begins in the early 1960s with Henry Ford II, the grandson of Ford Motor Company’s founder, and one of the most powerful chief executives of his era. “Hank the Deuce,” as people called him (though never to his face), saw his motor company failing in a heated sales competition against crosstown rival Chevrolet, the flagship of General Motors. In Nascar racing in the early 60s, GM’s cars proved nearly unbeatable. At the same time, GM’s market share had begun to skyrocket—a clear mandate that the new generation of car buyers (now known as the baby boomers) was nuts for speed.

Henry II and a young Ford upshot named Lee Iacocca devised a plan.

In 1963, Henry Ford II hurled his family company into racing. The goal: To prove with checkered flags that Ford was the best car money could buy. But he was already a step ahead of his Motor City rivals. He saw that the biggest emerging car market in the 1960s wasn’t going to be in the U.S., but rather in Europe. It was the dawn of globalism. So he set his sights not just on Nascar and the Indy 500 in America, but also on Europe’s biggest motor race—the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Enter Enzo Ferrari, the “Magician of Maranello.” By the early 1960s, Ferrari had become the most heralded name in international racing. Ferrari’s red cars were leading an unprecedented Le Mans dynasty; they would win six straight years at the beginning of the 1960s. At the same time, there was no more controversial figure in international sports than Ferrari. His racing drivers met death with such regularity, Ferrari became known as “The Monster of Maranello.” In 1957, following a racing crash that severed a Ferrari driver in two and killed a number of spectators, Enzo Ferrari was charged with manslaughter (he was later acquitted). He was attacked by the Vatican’s official newspaper, l’Osservatore Romano, which called him “a modernized Saturn turned big industrialist [who] continues to devour his sons. As it is in myth, so too is it in reality.”

At first, Henry Ford II thought the almighty dollar was the key to winning Le Mans. He attempted to buy Ferrari, which would give him instant access and know-how, as Le Mans racing cars were technological marvels unlike anything any American car manufacturer had ever built. After a business deal between the two men went sour, the stage was set for a war of speed. On June 20, 1964, a team of Ford men wheeled the first Ford GT40s onto the tarmac at Le Mans. The car was revolutionary. It stood just 40 inches off the ground (thus the “40” in its name), and its V8 engine was situated just behind the driver. The building of this car represented “a scintillating technical challenge,” according to its original chief engineer Roy Lunn. “The competition [Ferrari] has reached its sophisticated product level after nearly 40 years of evolutionary development.” This car had been designed to hit speeds of over 200 mph, and it had been dreamed up and materialized in very little time.

Le Mans was run on a curvy 8.36-mile loop of public roads, closed off each June. The rules (circa the 1960s): two drivers to each car, one in the car at a time. The car that traveled the farthest after 24 hours won. Le Mans was known to massacre racing drivers. It had seen so much death that, the year Ford debuted against Ferrari, Car and Driver called the event “a four hour sprint race followed by a 20 hour death watch.” It was “probably the most dangerous sporting event in the world.”

Hundreds of thousands watched the opening laps of Ford’s debut, in 1964. Most could not believe their eyes and ears when a Ford GT40 rocketed past a Ferrari to take the lead in lap two. Jim McKay, barking over ABC’s Wide World of Sports microphones: “Word from the course is that [racing driver] Richie Ginther, who had moved up from eighth to fourth place, has passed some more cars. As a matter of fact, the word is that Richie Ginther has taken the lead in the second lap in the white Ford with blue stripes. The American racing colors are in the lead at Le Mans! There he is on the right of your screen. Get a look at that low-slung Ford! I’ve never seen a car as low as that!”

The Ford-Ferrari rivalry captured the imagination of millions, and while Americans tuned into European racing in ever greater numbers in 1964 and 1965, Ferrari still proved to be unbeatable. Ferrari’s factory turned out one winning car after another—the 275P, the 330P—cars as remarkable for their beauty as they were for their speed. In 1965, Ford countered by putting a Nascar engine in the GT40. No one had ever put a motor that huge (7 liters) into such a lightweight vehicle standing just 40 inches off the ground. The cylinders were as big as “wine bottles,” Ferrari observed. The Ford car became so rocket-fast, engineers had a hard time figuring out how to slow it down and keep it on the road.

Meanwhile, many of the world’s greatest racing drivers chose sides. Ferrari had the late John Surtees, the only man ever to win Grand Prix world championships on two wheels and four. Ford had Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, and a rookie named Mario Andretti. When a Ford executive was introduced to Mr. Ferrari at a racetrack in ‘65, he said, “I would like you to know Mr. Ferrari, we at Ford have a great respect for you.” Ferrari responded, “Yes, I know. Like America respects Russia.”