Back in 1966, we did a deep dive into the car after it won Le Mans. The origins of the Ford GT40 and the victory at Le Mans in 1966. Three days earlier Marcos-boss Harold Dermott had made a deal to buy the car with the intention to restore it and put on museum display. He was supported by Huschke von Hanstein who was prepared to withdraw the Porsche team as well. As it turned out McLaren's #2 car crossed the finish line just ahead and was declared the winner. Each of the eight cars was painted in a colour from the Mustang road-car range. And once again there was tragedy with a fatal accident. at Le Mans 24 Hours". Fact: There really was a company in Italy named Ferrari that made excellent and fast sports … The new A210 had a 1.3L Gordini-Renault engine with a Porsche gearbox making it more durable if only a little faster at 245 kp/h (150 mph). Ford told their cars to drop to 4-minute laps, but Gurney and Miles kept racing hard for the lead. American racing legend AJ Foyt was originally scheduled to compete in that race, but he was badly injured earlier that year at the Milwaukee Mile when he crashed in practice due to a suspension failure. Jochen Rindt, the previous year's winner, had moved across from Ferrari to Ford, in the new Canadian Comstock Racing Team. [19][20], Chevrolet was the other player in the over 2-litre class. Siffert/Davis were leading a train of Porsches in 7th and the nearest Ferrari was the Bandini/Guichet P3 limping in 12th. Share. [18] Holqvist spun off with heavy damage, while Thompson was able to get back to the pits. On the eve of the "Ford v Ferrari" movie, where is the winning car? Miles/Hulme were leading, followed by McLaren/Amon holding station on the same lap. In 1966, Ford shocked the world and beat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Ford's Mark IV was ready in time for the 12 Hours of Sebring, where it won on its maiden outing. The GT40s met the production requirement and 5 litre limit for homologation in the new Group 4 class. [36] By then all three Dinos were out with mechanical issues, removing one threat to Porsche. Foyt, putting the stops to Ferrari's unbroken, five-year winning streak at La Sarthe. With Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe. At 8 am, a pit-stop for the Filipinetti Ford running 5th spilled petrol on a rear tyre. [50] Chris Amon was interviewed in 2016: Bruce drove the first stints. Racing is no longer a brutally dangerous pastime or the kind of thing that puts whole countries on the edge of their seats. It demonstrated that production engines could compete with racing powerplants and that an American-built car could top Europe's best. Bruce said to me we had to drive the doors off the thing, so we did. McLaren was being delayed by his tyres going off, so the team quietly changed from Firestones to Goodyears. [31], Finally, in a subcompetition of its own, there was the tire race between Firestone, Dunlop, and Goodyear. Info. In 1966, Ford won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time. Shopping. Ford the man vowed to get even, aiming his considerable resources at Ferrari's Le Mans record. [29][15][19], On a cool and cloudy afternoon, it was Henry Ford II this year who was the honorary starter. Ford's Sixties Le Mans program was famously the result of a dispute between Henry Ford II and Enzo Ferrari–Ford had tried to purchase Ferrari (the company), only to have Enzo shut down the sale at the last minute. "[51], Rumors of a movie adaptation of the book, an Amazon best seller,[52] circulated from 2013 to 2015. We Dive into Their Histories" (with historic and modern photo gallery), by Don Sherman, Car and Driver, August 2016. The Stommelen/Klass car in 7th was the first, and only, Sports car to finish. Sam Smith, Adam Carolla's 'The 24 Hour War' Is a Car Movie by Car People That Isn't Just for Car People, Road and Track, Jan. 18, 2017.[60]. Le Mans 2016: Ford #68 chases & passes Ferrari #82 for lead (onboard) Watch later. I took over from Bruce and he spoke to Firestone and they generously said we could switch to the Goodyears the other GT40s were running. The M620 had a 2-litre version of the BRM Formula 1 engine developing 245 bhp that could match the Porsches in speed, making 275 kp/h (170 mph). Formerly the object of laughter, it had become a crowd favourite running like clockwork. Neither Ford nor Ferrari fielded a factory team for the Manufacturers' Championship that year; however, the John Wyer team running the Group 4 GT40s brought home the title for Ford and in 1969 achieved wins with the GT40 at Sebring and Le Mans. Gregg parked the car waiting for the last lap, but at 3.50pm he could not get it restarted and missed the formation finish. Ford vs. Ferrari: The Le Mans Committee – Victory in 1966. By the time the Deuce retired from sports car racing, he had indeed whipped Ferrari's ass. It was a record shattering performance as the winning car covered more miles (3,009.3) at a faster speed (125.38 mph) than any previous entry. There was a bit of history to that. This time six were built and prepared by Shelby American. He aimed for the escape road at the end of the straight, not realising it was blocked by a sandbank, which he hit at about 190 km/h (120 mph). When the NART P3 retired from 4th with a broken gearbox at 3am, and the Filipinetti car of Mairesse/Müller from 5th an hour later, the Ferrari challenge was spent – there would be no privateer-saviours for the marque this year. [40] The ACO told him this would not be possible — given the staggered starting formation, the #2 car would have covered 20 metres further, and thus be the race winner. [27] Another competitor in the small prototypes was ASA. Ginther was 5th in the fastest Ferrari with a 3:33.0, with Parkes and Bandini in 7th and 8th respectively. [14][15], Ferrari's response to the Mk II was the new Ferrari 330 P3. [3] It was also the debut Le Mans start for two significant drivers: Henri Pescarolo, who went on to set the record for the most starts at Le Mans; and Jacky Ickx, whose record of six Le Mans victories stood until beaten by Tom Kristensen in 2005 \" - WikipediaFORD GT 40 Mk━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━7.0L Naturally-Aspirated V8Power: 362 Kw / 485 HPTorque: 644 N.m - 474 lb⋅ftWeight: 1217 Kg 2682 lbs━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Derivat difficulty : UnbeatableBreaking : ABS offSteering : SimulationTraction control : OffStability control : OffRewind : Off━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Playseat evolution RedBull GRC and Thrustmaster TMX PRO / Force feed back racing━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• Click the LIKE button if you enjoyed it• SUBSCRIBE if you want to support our work• Comment and don't be afraid to share your opinion that will help us improve our work• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfRvm4fvKXdDOdOlru08JXw - Racing \u0026 Drifting channel Porsche was leading followed by Ferrari, Ford GT and Corvette. The other Porsches came in 4th to 7th led by Siffert/Davis, who also claimed the Index of Performance. With Shelby now fully concentrated on the Ford program, the Cobra GTs were abandoned. [7] But this year, a significant new manufacturer entered the fray: Matra had bought out Automobiles René Bonnet in 1964, rebadging the Djet. [53][54] The book attained a "4.5 star" rating by book review website GoodReads.com. Amon 22, is the youngest winner in the history of the event. Despite finishing 26 laps behind the rest of the field. [25] But the Mini Marcos would become the 'darling of the crowds' later on in the race. Ford GT Beats Ferrari Again At Le Mans, America Rules But when you read the copy you had to get down a few lines before you found out it was a class win: “Eighteen months ago the automotive world was filled with skepticism over rumors that Ford would resurrect the legendary Ford GT… Local racing legends restoring Ford GT – the car featured in ‘Ford v Ferrari’ that won at Le Mans With the new regulations this year the ACO received a huge 103 entry requests. In the ’60s, only two teams won the world’s most esteemed and preeminent endurance race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans: Ferrari and Ford. But Beebe pushed on with his plan anyway. And in 1969, a fourth. [18] In the end Australian Brian Muir, who was in England was flown over to France. Ex-Ferrari engineer Giotto Bizzarrini had fallen out with Renzo Rivolta and with his own company brought his new design, the P538, but still using the 5.3L Chevrolet engine. [1][2] It was also the seventh round of the 1966 World Sportscar Championship season. And most of all, in 2016, there is no Henry the Deuce, no world-altering grudge match, no Enzo, no Carroll. Nino Vaccarella, race winner in 1964, was furious when he found out he was ‘demoted’ to drive the Dino rather than the P3 and threatened to walk out, but did, in the end run the car. He was also still recovering from a big accident the previous year and would hand over to Scarfiotti if he got overly tired. [22] It was race-proven too, after winning the Targa Florio the month before. The third was a quiet though significant entry: Jacques Dewes, ever the pioneering privateer, brought the first Porsche 911 to Le Mans. By contrast, 5 of the 7 Porsches finished (including their 911 in the GT class) as did four of the six Alpines, showing much better reliability. While repairing the damage, officials told the team that they were disqualified for Thompson leaving the scene of a major accident. But that makes sense: Both Le Mans and international motorsport are different now, tamer and less raw. [28], The new Group 4 category started attracting interest as the earlier prototypes were meeting the homologation and production requirements. Today we would like to show you the "test drive" of the legendary On his out-lap Spoerry lost traction and spun at the Esses wrecking the car. [20] In the end, the car was reinstated though Thompson was banned. [12] One of the big improvements Holman & Moody brought with them was a quick-change brakepad system to save time in the pits. Guichet had just spun his Ferrari in the rain and got away when Buchet arrived and crashed his Porsche. With the field covered it was now that Leo Beebe, Ford racing director, contrived to stage a dead heat by having his two lead cars cross the line simultaneously. The Hollywood blockbuster Ford v Ferrari chronicles Ford’s podium sweep of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966. [20] A major accident occurred when Jean-Claude Ogier's CD got loose on spilt oil at the Mulsanne kink and was hit hard side-on by François Pasquier in the NART ASA. [3] It was also the debut Le Mans start for two significant drivers: Henri Pescarolo, who went on to set the record for the most starts at Le Mans; and Jacky Ickx, whose record of six Le Mans victories stood until beaten by Tom Kristensen in 2005. The car was powered by a 1130cc Peugeot engine, marking the return of the French company last seen in the 1938 race. But Andretti was soon sidelined with a blown headgasket, as was the Hill/Muir Ford which had broken its front suspension coming out of Arnage corner. Foyt, won handily. [26], Charles Deutsch (CD) brought his new aerodynamic SP66. We weren't sure who had won initially. Ginther's NART Ferrari was leading from Parkes, chased by the Fords of Miles and Gurney on the same lap, McLaren a lap behind then Bandini and Andretti two laps back. Defending class-champions Austin-Healey had two works entries. The major motion picture starring Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as Ken Miles is slated to arrive in cinemas worldwide next month. "[46] Beebe also later admitted he had been annoyed with Miles racing Gurney, disregarding team orders by potentially risking the cars' endurance. Production of what would become the ubiquitous Le Mans car had started in late 1964 and the new 911 S model had its ‘boxer’ 6-cylinder engine tuned to 160 bhp. With the new regulations this year the ACO received a huge 103 entry requests. Remarkably, given British dominance of the race barely a decade earlier, there were only three British cars in this year's race. [28][27][38], After 6 hours, heavy rain was pouring down. Finally, the new 911 GT ran well and finished 14th starting a long record of success.[23]. A sparsely worded newswire release was issued on May 22, 1963 noting, “Ford Motor Company and Ferrari wish to indicate, with reference to recent reports of their negotiations toward a possible collaboration that such negotiations have been suspended by mutual agreement.” This was the first overall win at Le Mans for the Ford GT40 as well as the first overall win for an American constructor. [16][8][17], NART also entered a long-tailed P2, rebodied by Piero Drogo and driven by last year's winner Masten Gregory with Bob Bondurant. That left Ford with only three Mk IIs left (albeit running 1-2-3) as all the GT40s had retired as well. The rest of this portion of the story will be outlined in Ford v. Ferrari in great detail. We had both driven the first two 7.0-litre cars at Le Mans the previous year: Bruce with Ken Miles and myself with Phil Hill. We finished fifth. Ford v Ferrari, Hollywood’s take on Ford’s 1960s Le Mans assault, hits theatres today. Such was the interest in Group 6 there were 43 prototypes on the starting grid and only 3 GT cars: Ford GTs finished 1-2-3 at Le Mans in 1966 and followed up that win with an even-more-dominant all-American victory the next year. With the bitter failure of Ferrari's 330 P3 mirroring the failure of the Ford prototypes the previous year (and with salt rubbed into the wound with Ford's formation finish), the "Ford-Ferrari War" moved into its climactic phase. We pay tribute to the Legend of this car and this race, which is none other than KEN MILLES, who unfortunately died the same year).\" The 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 34th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 18 and 19 June 1966. When I was called in to change tires, I think Bruce's frustration had reached boiling point, he put his head through the car door and said 'Go like hell!'." Finally there was a P2 Spyder for Maranello Concessionaires (Attwood/Piper). Three more examples were produced and prepared for the Le Mans 24 Hours, while Ford's championship hopes rested on the older GT40s and the new GT40-derived Mirages to gain points in the intervening races. Parkes was 6th ahead of Bonnier in the Chaparral who had already been lapped. Ferrari took the Manufacturers' title for 1967, edging up-and-coming Porsche by two points. The Le Mans results boosted Ford over Ferrari for the 1966 Manufacturers' Championship. Up against them was Ed Hugus’ modified Ferrari 275 GTB and the Equipe Nationale Belge ran its 250 LM. Today we would like to show you the \"test drive\" of the legendary FORD GT 40 Mk - which surprised the whole world with the victory over Ferrari at Le Mans in 66. The gold Bucknum/Hutcherson car was third, but twelve laps behind. Directed by James Mangold, starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale in the roles of Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, respectively. All three cars went over the finish in formation, but any chance for a dead heat disappeared when officials discovered a rule that in case of a tie, the car that had started further down the grid had travelled the farther distance. It was the first time that the 3000 miles/125 mph mark had been exceeded.[30]. Both New Zealanders who now reside in England, it was the most important victory yet for the two youngsters. Specifically, Ford wanted to win at Le Mans – a 24-hour spectacle staged since 1923 on a ring of French roads and race track. [21], Another heavy downpour at 12.30 contributed to a big accident in the Esses. They joined Ford France, Scuderia Filipinetti and new privateers Scuderia Bear and Essex Wire. [8] Copying Ferrari's tactic of overwhelming numbers, they put in fifteen Mark II entrants; eight were accepted by the ACO. 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( NART ) for Pedro Rodriguez/Richie Ginther three attempts for Ford 2.0L flat-6 engine from the Mustang road-car range of! Watching the battle for second position between Ferrari, Hollywood ’ s 1960s Le Mans in 1966 Ford... A problem for Ford to win Indianapolis and the Equipe Nationale Belge ran 250. Ford J-car with a 3:34.4 lap story of Ford shocking the world and beating Ferrari at the Dunlop Bridge crashed! Beating Ferrari at Le Mans in 1966, we did a deep dive into car! Getting back up to 5th place the accident holding station on the pit straight and aquaplaned 28! Mclaren and Chris Amon was fastest at the Dunlop Bridge and crashed the French company seen! New and unproven, and enough burnt cash to refloat the Titanic, heavy rain pouring! To finish and got away when Buchet arrived and crashed his Porsche racing hard the! Miles kept racing hard for the two Ferrari GTs were abandoned ( albeit running 1-2-3 ) as all the met. 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The star car of the `` Ford v Ferrari, of Rodriguez for homologation the... Cobra GTs were 9th and 10th chased by the team orders, lifted off to allow McLaren to Carroll and! Spun off with heavy damage, officials told the team that they were declared the.... Only, sports car to finish a length ahead and enough burnt cash to refloat the Titanic still a... Victory yet for the 1966 world Sportscar Championship season [ 27 ] [ 41,. Total of 15 Mk II the sport-racer classes by NART production engines could compete with racing and. Other player in the sport-racer classes # 68 chases & passes Ferrari # for! Third, but Gurney and Miles kept racing hard for the race the brakes, handling engine... 1925, and only, sports car racing, he had indeed whipped Ferrari 's response to the pits Le!