Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans

by A.J. Baime

Two Frenchmen, Charles Faroux and Georges Durand, created the event to test the stamina and performance of cars and drivers, mapping out a roughly egg-shaped course through the countryside with twists and a backstretch for flat-out speed.

I will build a motor car for the great multitude. —HENRY FORD, 1909

“If you want to be in this business and not lose your mind, you’ve got to be a little bold,” he said. “You’re going to make some mistakes, but go ahead.”

Ignoring Edsel Ford’s pleadings for a new model, Henry chose to fight it out with his obsolete Model T, lowering the price so much the roadster cost less per pound than a wheelbarrow. In 1924, two out of every three automobiles purchased in America were Model Ts. Two years later, Ford was being outsold two to one.

Ford Motor Company was hemorrhaging millions of dollars every month. It was impossible to give an exact number because there was no accounting system. “Can you believe it?” Henry II later remembered. “In one department they figured their costs by weighing the pile of invoices on a scale.”

In European racing, victory can be translated immediately into sales. Buyers over there operate on the rather simple theory that if, for example, in the 24-hours endurance race at Le Mans, five Ferraris finish ahead of the rest of the pack under such grueling circumstances—it’s the best car and you ought to buy it. “It has worked the same way for us,” remarked [Detroit Pontiac dealer Bill Packer, who sponsored the winning car]. “Back in 1957 when Bunkie Knudsen took over the division, a Pontiac was a good car all right but it had a reputation for being an old woman’s auto. Great for grandmas. Then we started dominating stock car racing. We went way up in sales in just a couple of years.

But as others were doing it, I too had to do it,” Henry I later described this moment. “If an automobile was going to be known for speed, then I was going to make an automobile that would be known wherever speed was known.” Henry I won the race. He gambled his life on it and prevailed, and this victory put a new carmaker named Henry Ford on the map. What would history be if Crazy Henry had come in second?

I am convinced, that when a man tells a woman he loves her, he only means that he desires her; and that the only total love in this world is that of a father for his son. —ENZO FERRARI, 1963

They called him The Magician of Maranello, a “speed-bewitched recluse.” But here in his home city, where he had grown up, there was no mystery. He looked and dressed like any other man sitting in the cafes of the Piazza Grande. He was a Modenese, a paesano.

World War I derailed Ferrari’s ambitions. The war ravaged Italy, destroying its economy and infrastructure. And yet, the war accelerated the innovation of automobiles and airplanes. Sophisticated new machinery resulted, as well as a generation of men accustomed to speed and danger. They had not forgotten their lost brothers. Bitterness lingered, and in the 1920s car races served as symbolic warfare. Cars raced in national colors: red for Italy, blue for France, green for England, yellow for Belgium, white (later silver) for Germany. The war left Ferrari penniless, his father and brother dead. He was relatively uneducated, having sat through four years of elementary school and three of trade school. But he possessed a valuable talent—a knack for fixing things.

While he looked out from the podium, a man pushed through the crowd and introduced himself as the Count Enrico Baracca, father of the Italian war hero Francesco Baracca, a Modenese who’d shot down thirty-four enemy planes before he was killed in 1919. The ace pilot flew with a black Prancing Horse, the symbol of his squadron, painted on his plane’s fuselage. It was Baracca’s mother who told the young racing driver: “Ferrari, why don’t you put my son’s Cavallino Rampante on your car? It will bring you luck.” Ferrari laid this Prancing Horse symbol against a yellow shield, the color of Modena. This badge would one day become one of the most recognizable brand symbols in the world.

Years later Ferrari was asked: Which of his cars was his favorite? He answered, “The car which I have not yet created.” And which of his victories meant the most? “The one which I have not yet achieved.”

Ford had partnered with Colin Chapman, the British founder of Lotus, to build two revolutionary rear-engined Indy cars. A reporter spotted Iacocca.

World War II gave Shelby his first taste of speed. He joined the Air Corps and was stationed at Lackland Army Air Force Base outside San Antonio, where he learned to fly B-25s, B-26s, and later B-29s. When the war ended he got married, had three kids, and set out looking for a way to make money. He started a dump truck business but it failed. He worked the oil fields. He tried his hand at raising chickens but ended up with twenty thousand dead birds, killed by a case of botulism. One day a friend named Ed Wilkins asked Shelby if he’d drive a car he’d built in a competition. That’s when it all began.

Sports Illustrated in 1957: Sports Car Driver of the Year.

Shelby called them “hot-rodders trying to prove that they weren’t the dipshits everyone in the world thought they were.” They knew how to weld, how to fabricate, how to make cars go fast. Walking around the shop, hearing the hiss of air hoses and smelling the sweat and oil, Iacocca knew that Shelby had tapped into something very real and powerful.

One estimate put the figure at 25 percent each year; one in four Grand Prix drivers who started a season could expect to be dead before it was out. After each tragedy came the grim cleanup, and the photos in the papers of weeping mothers and beautiful widows in black dresses.

Roy Lunn, a thirty-eight-year-old Englishman with a taste for fine suits and pocket squares. Lunn was the one Ford engineer in America who had experience building racy European automobiles. When he was in his twenties he had worked at Aston Martin, where he designed the DB2, which won Le Mans in its class in 1950 and 1951. Lunn’s little Aston became the “it car” to own in Europe as a result. Lunn joined Ford in 1953. By some accounts, he had the best job in Detroit. He was paid to draw up plans for vehicles of the future. Among his design concepts was a three-wheel flying car topped by a helicopter propeller and a 170,000-pound supertruck called Big Red. He was Ford’s answer to Q in Ian Fleming’s 007 novels, complete with patrician British accent.

The next day, Frey departed Italy with a signed copy of Ferrari’s book, The Enzo Ferrari Memoirs: My Terrible Joys, which had just been published, as a parting gift. A

W. O. Bentley was the first to understand the commercial importance of this race, the prestige that came with victory, not just for the make of car but the country it came from. His English touring cars achieved a dynasty at Le Mans, winning from 1927 to 1930. Alfa Romeo followed—1931 to 1934. The French cars of Ettore Bugatti dominated the prewar years. Following World War II, Enzo Ferrari emerged as the greatest of all Le Mans constructors. In each case—Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Ferrari—Le Mans victories were responsible for the status of these budding companies and created demand for these cars across Europe. If it were not for these checkered flags, would these companies exist today?

Remington was a mastermind with no college degree or any formal training, who’d been building speed machines since the early days of hot-rodding on dry lake beds northeast of Los Angeles. Competition manager was Ken Miles, a World War II tank commander from England. At forty-five, Miles was four years older than Shelby, a sharp-tongued engineer who’d earned a reputation as the best 1.5-liter-class racer in California and perhaps anywhere.

The last time anyone beat Ferrari, the year was 1959 and Shelby was at the wheel of an Aston Martin. He became the second American after Phil Hill to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. During the entire race he wore a pair of chicken-farmer overalls.

Guys like Carroll Shelby and his Cobra, and a Texan named Jim Hall and his Chaparral.

In the first act of his labor, the maker conceives what his creature is to be: he dreams of it and sees it in detail, and he lays down the plan of work which he entrusts to a band of helpers who share his passion. A racing car, in fact, does not necessarily come into being as the creation of a superior mind, but is always the compendium of the common unflagging and enthralling work of a team of men fired by a common enthusiasm. There follows its construction, which must nearly always be done in record time, although it never takes less than six to eight months of feverish work. The next stage is the assembly of the car and its testing, which is the most delicate, the most engrossing and the most dramatic phase. . .

I am hypnotized by the atmosphere: the trees, the immense stands, the undulating roads with such holy monsters as Tertre Rouge, Maison Blanche, and the Hunaudières straights, the legendary Arnage and Mulsanne corners, where many dreams have foundered and others have brightened. I stand there for a half hour looking around and I relive the noise of the people, the roar of the crowds, the exhaust notes of the cars, the frenzy of refueling, the lights at night, the livid light of dawn, the hot sun that worsens fatigue and mists the mind. Ah, the stress of Le Mans! —Enzo Ferrari’s lieutenant FRANCO GOZZI

“After all,” joked Luigi Chinetti, “the best American sports car is the Jeep, no?”

Wyer assembled the Ford racers for a meeting. Six drivers, three teams of two. Wyer’s philosophy was the opposite of Enzo Ferrari’s. He believed in a team approach. Each driver and car was a cog in his victory machine. He wanted everything done precisely according to his orders.

“Well, for God’s sake,” Ginther shouted, “isn’t anyone going to ask me how the car went?” Questions followed and Ginther told his story. One man present described him as “wildly ecstatic.” When he passed those Ferraris to take the lead on the Mulsanne Straight, Ginther said, his tach read 7,200 rpm. He had hit 210 mph. Only two months earlier, Surtees had set a mark on the Straight during the Le Mans test weekend at 194.

Wyer later learned that the fuel hoses, which were supposed to be made of an ultradurable synthetic material, had in fact been made of plain nylon, and the heat of the engine compartment had melted one of Attwood’s hoses. “This was the result of almost criminal negligence,” Wyer later commented. “It was a miracle the other cars were not affected.”

Minutes later, Gregory limped into the pit. He was having trouble with the transmission. He couldn’t get out of second gear. Mechanics went to work but it was futile. Wyer gave word to the officials; he was withdrawing a second Ford. Roy Lunn stood by, the irony eating at him. The faulty component—the Colotti trans-axle—was made in Modena, Italy, by a former Ferrari employee. Only one Ford remained.

Just two years had passed since Shelby first stepped foot in Iacocca’s office with the idea of building his own car. Nobody believed he’d ever beat the Corvettes. Nobody believed his cars would finish the 24-hour grind at Le Mans. Now the “Powered by Ford” Shelby Cobra had placed fourth at Le Mans and first in the GT class. Shelby’s Cobra was the Cassius Clay of motor racing, easy on the eyes and capable of the impossible. The reporters awaited comment from the Texan. He was always good for a quote.

It was a daring idea. Putting all the 427’s torque and power to the pavement in such a lightweight vehicle would require incredibly durable components. No braking system on earth could slow down 3,000 speeding pounds. There was fuel consumption to think about. And there was the transmission. If the transmission couldn’t hold together under the stress of 350 horsepower, was an additional 100-plus-horsepower engine going to help?

Shelby never claimed to be a technical genius. His strategy was to surround himself with talent and to inspire his men to achieve beyond what they believed they could. He had his chief engineer Phil Remington, the most underrated technician anywhere in the world, Shelby would argue. Next he needed a project manager. “You want ‘em?” he said to Carroll Smith, an ex-driver and Goodyear tire engineer who worked at the Venice shop. “What do you mean?” Smith answered. “Do you want to be the team manager for our GT40s?” “Shit!” Smith said. “Well yes I do, but I’ve already agreed to work for John Wyer.”

Miles was forty-six, older than most of the young bloods at Shelby American. His job was to take raw cars and turn them into racing machines. Many who knew Miles thought he was a sarcastic bastard. Carroll Shelby knew Miles was a genius.

The drive didn’t last long. He pulled back into the pit and stepped out. Everyone waited to hear his impressions. He shook his head and said, “It’s bloody awful.”

They didn’t want to live their fathers’ lives. All the keep-it-in-your-pants repression of the 1950s—follow the rules, never question—had planted a seed of desire in the new generation, a lust for adventure. It was this kernel that Hugh Hefner tapped into with Playboy magazine, that Albert Broccoli did with his 007 movies, and that Detroit was now exploiting in full force. Not just Ford with the Mustang, but John DeLorean and his new Pontiac GTO (named for the Ferrari GTO) and Plymouth’s new Barracuda. It was the dawn of the muscle-car era. Speed was nothing but sex. To hammer the accelerator was to do it in the road. To indulge in risk was to be set free.

Iacocca already had his friend Shelby working on a racing version of the Mustang. (“Can you do it?” he’d asked Shelby. “I don’t know,” came the answer. “It’s a secretary’s car.”)

Henry II was making his own news. His lawyer issued a statement: “Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford II have decided upon a legal separation.” From that moment, the Italian mistress of America’s most famous industrialist began to appear in newspapers and magazines seemingly for no reason, as no one would print that she was romantically linked to Henry II and his hundreds of millions. It wouldn’t be proper, as they weren’t yet married. No self-respecting journalist would print something that invaded a public figure’s private life. Cristina Vettore Austin was photographed by Richard Avedon for a two-page spread in Harper’s Bazaar, headlined “An Eclectic Beauty.”

To Henry II’s chagrin, American cars were not her thing. “Henry, look at that beautiful Mustang,” she said one day. “That is a Chevrolet,” he answered. “I told you ten times, it’s a Chevrolet.”

The Aeronutronic technicians rigged a computer into the passenger seat of a GT40. It was space-man gear, the most sophisticated aeronautical equipment on earth, and it filled half the interior compartment. The computer sensors aimed to gather air pressure and temperature readings inside the car’s ducting. The data would be transmitted to a trackside truck where a technician was stationed. An oscillograph would measure engine revolutions on paper right in the cockpit. It was almost certainly the first time computer equipment was used in the development of a racing car on the track. Meanwhile Shelby’s GT40 team manager Carroll Smith was going to gather similar information the old-fashioned way. Using Scotch tape, he stuck pieces of cotton yarn in tight rows all over the driver’s side of the car (the right side). The movement of the yarn would tell the driver and anyone watching the direction of airflow when the car was in motion. Miles slipped on his helmet and lapped at slow speeds. A chase car followed, inside which a snapper aiming a Polaroid captured the movement of the yarn on the car’s body.

“We have several advantages over other people who have played with the car,” Miles told a reporter days before Daytona. “We can react to a suggestion—we can do something right now. We don’t have to go through elaborate procedures of putting through formal design changes. If we decide we don’t like something, we can take a hacksaw and cut it off. Practically everything we do is a panic operation. But if anyone can do it, we can.”

There was a side to Miles that few of his colleagues, almost all of whom were younger than he, could understand. Miles was of that generation that had lived through World War II. He’d driven tanks in the British Army, on reconnaissance and recovery missions. His unit was among the first to pass through the Nazi death camp at Bergen-Belsen.

Working for Shelby, Miles wasn’t supposed to race. He’d been hired as a competition manager, engineer, and test driver. But he couldn’t stand it in the pit. He was building cars to beat Ferrari, and nobody was going to keep him out of the cockpit. He was going to compete. One night Miles was working late in his office on the paperwork for entry at Le Mans. It was busywork, laborious and boring. Present was Shelby’s photographer Dave Friedman, who had to take pictures of various auto parts to file with the papers. Talk of racing’s death toll came up. Miles had seen his share of top-flight talents come and go. “You know,” he said, “I’d rather die in a racing car than get eaten up by cancer.” Miles had managed to stay alive over years battling on racetracks in cars he had built himself with virtually no safety equipment. His every breath was a testament to his skill.

At 3:25 P.M., halfway through the race, a tropical deluge pounded central Florida. In minutes the track was flooded. In some places water was six inches deep. Visibility shrunk to a few feet. Race fans ran for cover; they couldn’t see the cars anyway. Shelby saw Phil Hill bring a Ford GT40 into the pit. When Hill opened his door, water poured out of the interior. Hill tried to get out but Shelby pushed him back in. A mechanic leaned in between Hill’s legs and punched holes in the floorboards with a hammer to drain the water. “Watch out for my balls!” Hill screamed.

The crew broke for sandwiches, then Miles stepped into the car. He was far more sophisticated than Payne, and after some laps he went over his impressions with Remington. More laps, more adjustments. They worked on suspension setups—trial and error at 200 mph and beyond. Miles began to dive deeper into the turns, and the car spoke to him. He could sense its vast power, summoning more and more of it, holding the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers.

The experiment didn’t end until the engine could survive the abuse not of one 24-hour race, but two in a row.

A growing fan base got a glimpse into the very private man’s personal life. Everything Miles did, he seemed to have an incredible passion for: gardening, fine wines. He had a cat that he had taught how to defecate on the toilet. All spring he’d been racing against the best in the world—Formula One racers—and beating them. “Miles the Man for Le Mans,” read a Los Angeles Times headline. “Ken Miles and [driving teammate] Lloyd Ruby have pushed American prestige to the peak,” read another. “I am a mechanic,” Miles described himself. “That has been the direction of my entire vocational life. Driving is a hobby, a relaxation for me, like golfing is to others. I should like to drive a Formula i machine—not for the grand prize, but just to see what it is like. I should think it would be jolly good fun!”

“To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one’s ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.”

“We don’t have to feel sorry for people who choose to live dangerously, and lose. So the bull wins one. The matador must take the risk. The closer he plays to the horn, the better the show . . . Well, Miles, good show.”

And I remember my grandfather saying, “Boy, we Americans, we can do anything.” —BARACK OBAMA at the Democratic National Convention, August 28, 2008