1960s Ford GT40 vs Ferrari question

Simple Ford wanted to buy Ferrari. Enzo said no and Ford wanted revenge on the racetrack.


Ford had actually been involved in negotiations to buy the company, and had sent people to do a complete inventory of the Ferrari factory. Enzo then decided to tell Ford to take a hike. I guess it didn't sit well. Ford then beat Ferrari at Lamans for the next six years (I think).


Darrell.

 

Enzo 1 : Ford 0

Man, that man was a badass.

 

The deal for Ford to purchase Ferrari was very close to done. They were going to pay a mere $20 million for the company. One of the final points for Enzo was his insistance on overseeing the racing division, which Ford refused. He immediately had all the Ford folks tossed and killed the deal. Ford may have rallied to build a timeless race car with a short span of success over Ferrari, but Ferrari kept its name and legend intact.

 

hehe, in the first attempts Ford didn`t do jack****, it got beaten heavy by Ferrari , a few years later came the GT success

 

Gozzi tells a great story about how during a late might session the Ford contingent brought up the point of a racing budget restriction. Well, Enzo was furious that he would have to seek Ford approval for any budget over $250,000 (I think this was the number) and exploded at the Ford people, apparently cursing them out. Even Gozzi was horrified. The deal was dead.

After his tirade, Enzo turned to Gozzi and said, "Let's get something to eat."

I love it! So Italian...

 

"success" is an understatement. Didn't they make engine rule changes specifically to de-Ford the race?

This is one of my all-time fav race photos-
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Some would say that Ferrari never really had the intention of selling to Ford, and that he only did that to sway the Angelli family to come to his rescue.. which did happen several years later, but almost immediately they started to work with FIAT on the Dino engine....

From what has been written Ferrari probbabbly knew that he had a financial restriction on him, but used it as a last minute loophole to get out of the deal...I think then Henry Ford II made the promise that "Ferrari's ass is mine" and that is how the GT40 came to be... to humilliate Ferrari and really to make him see that Ford could always out spend him if he wanted to....

Ferrari probbabbly gets it over Ford in the end ... cause almost everybody knows there is - was a Mr. Ferrari.... and when you think of Henry Ford .. .you think of the old man... the original Mr. Ford... the duce is kinda forgotten!

 

Thank god that deal never went through. I can't imagine what we'd have today if that happened.

Rich

 

Ferrari probably wouldnt exist. Or if it did, it wouldnt be anything like it is today.

 

This is eactly how I've always heard the story. But Fords short span of success was because Ford discontinued racing once he proved he could beat Ferrari.

 

Not really. By 1969 when the rules changes cranked up, the GT40 was already very long in the tooth and the Porsche writing was on the wall. (though a GT40 won Lemans that year in the closest finish ever beating a 908. All the 917s broke...)

Couple of years later they did in fact legislate the 917s out of LeMans. Once Porsche had the 917 program in full swing and the cars aero problems sorted, no GT40 was going to compete. Thats nothing against the GT40's, its simply racing progressing as it always does. The GT40 was cutting edge in 1965.. but by '69 and later it was a heavy, dated design.

It sure would have been fun if Ford had decided to go head to head with Porsche!



Terry

 

I once heard an interview with Carol Shelby, and he claimed Ford spent almost a $billion trying to beat Ferrari. Who really knows. But its so laughable today to look back.

In the stories coming out about the P6 program, its been discussed that Ferrari may have been so short of engines, they swapped liners and pistons and or cranks in and out to change the displacement for a different race. They didnt even have enough spare motors of different displacement. Its been discussed they had poor tooling and a lot of the early V-12 engines into the mid 60's had dramatic misfitting of parts, and poorly machined parts. And think, in 1977, after over 30 years of building cars, they finally passed the 10,000 car built mark. There are home builders that have built more houses than that in metropolitan areas in just a year or two. Yet as dismal as Ferrari was, Ford was gonna pay $20 mil? And Enzo says NO! Guy sure had balls.

 

Terry wasn't the Mk IV effectivley a new design, seem to remember Jim "Napolis" stating that the Mk IV was never acvtually beaten in competition

Who'd have thought that the Lola Gt would go so far.......

 

Tend to agree with this version, many books on Ferrari have stated that it was the need to have Detroit approval for any cash request of over $250 000...

 

True. The Mark IV was based on the J-car, a totally new design.

 

I wouldn't say the GT40 dominated Ferrari as much as legend wants us to believe, even with all the money Ford put into the GT40 Ferrari still won the Sports Car Championship title with the P4 in 1967.

I think was really got Fords goat was when his Italian wife told him a Ford never could beat a Ferrari.

Behind the scenes when the purchase fell apart from Ford I am sure when Mr. Ferrari asked who would be in control of the racing and Ford mentioned they would be Mr. Ferrari probably laughed in his face that how could Ford who only knew how to race in ovals with left turns could design a true Gt race car, then to add insult to injury Mr.Ferrari probably threw in a few Ford acronym jokes as well.