MovieChat Forums > Ford v Ferrari (2019) Discussion > Not very complimentary to Ford

Not very complimentary to Ford


Their senior execs are a bunch of backstabbing toadies under the thumb of a powerful but not particularly bright owner. Also when they want to get in to the le Mans race they bring in their British designers, British drivers and hand the whole project of to an independent American company. I just wonder what the company think of the film?

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Buying a LeMans victory by the method described above was not much different than trying to buy Ferrari in the first place.

But yeah, the movie did make Ford management look like back stabbing pussies.

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Thats one aspect that this movie was realistic on. Ford have meddled a lot in their races to the point of evne flat out changing engines to ones that blew up.

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I am guessing they didn't shell out for ad placement (and they are suckers if they did)

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The film was really filled with inaccuracies when it came to how the GT40 came about, I would recommend you watch Shelby American on Netflix as it give a lot more accurate information on what happened and why exactly Shelby was put in charge of the operation. The movie left out a lot of details that when you see them will make things a bit more clear... it also clears up the part of the film where Ken Miles was robbed of the win at Le Mans... in short it wasn't Ford that fucked him it was the FIA that did it.... although even the Shelby American documentary doesn't include all the details on their first le Mans victory as it doesn't mention the fact that the Bruce McLaren pit crew took the brake rotors that were setup for Ken Miles car and used them on McLaren's GT40 which resulted in Miles having to come back for an additional pitstop, had that not occurred Miles would have still be several laps ahead of the other GT40's and would have allowed him to slow down for the dead heat crossing at the finish line while still being laps ahead to secure the victory. So if you want the real cause of him getting the shaft it was someone on the pit crew of the other team that fucked him.

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But isn’t the Mcklaren a British car racing team?
How Ken drove a McKlaren when the film Rush tell us Mcklaren a is a whole different team.
the team James Hunt got into in the 70s to be in F1.

So I’m a confused. Is Mcklaren a British sports car racing team like Ferrari which was Nicky Lauda’s team or the Mcklaren is just a type of car in team can use. ?

Someone who is fan of this sport explain me.

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Bruce McLaren was not a car manufacturer at the time of the GT40 races, he was just a race driver from Australia. He was hired by Ford to be one of the drivers of a GT40. At that point in time Ford had multiple teams of drivers for LeMans. It was not uncommon for a manufacturer of race cars to have multiple cars entered and each car entered in the race would have had a complete team of drivers and mechanics. The problem is that in the race in question the pits for the team that Bruce McLaren was driving on and the one that Ken Miles was driving on were located right beside each other. That is how the team of Bruce McLaren managed to get hold of the parts that were intended for Ken Miles' car. Whether it was an accident or deliberate is unclear.

Bruce McLaren was also a Formula 1 team owner and driver. Back in the 1960's F1 cars were really nothing like they are today and it was possible for individuals to simply put together a team that would build an F1 chassis and then drop in an existing F1 engine to go racing which is what Bruce McLaren did. Also the F1 seasons at that time were much shorter and had far fewer races, so driver of F1 cars were often racing in another series such as Le Mans. McLaren as a racing team didn't enter any cars at Le Mans until 1995 about 25 years after the death of Bruce McLaren. The confusion is that Bruce McLaren was a driver and also the founder of a racing team called McLaren and both Bruce and the team showed up in various different racing series throughout the years. Bruce died in 1970 but the team he founded continued in motor racing. James Hunt and Lauda both drove for McLaren Racing but in both instances it was well after Bruce McLaren had been dead and buried. And yes Lauda who was driving for Ferrari at the time of the Hunt vs Lauda races later drove for McLaren where he won the F1 championship in 1984.

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Thanks so much for explaining.
Made things much more clear now and didn’t know Nicky Lauda latter went to the McLaren team. I thought he was always with Ferrari.

And knowing that you are fan
Can I ask if it’s possible for a car racing pilot to be in two different divisions, being part of F1 and also endurance races.

Is there a famous pilot has done both ?
Do they do different preparation or training to be in different type of races and cars.?

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In the past a drivers would often race in different series when not in an F1 race. This was possible because in season in the 60's or 70's the number of races in a season was far fewer than today, and drivers were not paid as much as they are today so in some instances it was a way to make more money. If you look at 1972 you can find several drivers that were doing F1 but also competed in Can-Am races that same year which was doable in large part because none of the races of either series happened on the same weekend.

Denny Hulme a New Zealand driver competed in both Can-Am and F1 during the same years from mid 60's thru 1972, he had won the F1 driver's championship in 1967 and in that year was 2nd in the Can-Am challenge. You also had Mario Andretti who was known to have raced in F1, NASCAR and Can-Am cars in the same year... If you go look at a lot of the better drivers from the mid 70's on back you will find lots of drives that did multiple series in the same year.

More recently you had Fernando Alonso do a one off while with McLaren and compete in the Indianapolis 500, when he did that he had to skip racing at Monaco which really didn't matter to him at the time as McLaren had such a piss poor F1 car that he knew that he had zero chance of doing anything at Monaco.

Though generally F1 teams today frown upon a driving doing anything outside of F1. In part they have the fear of a driver they are paying millions getting hurt and being unable to drive. An example of the problem was Robert Kubica who nearly had his arm torn off driving a Rally car just before the opening F1 season, this highlighted the potential problem for the F1 teams and really put a damper on most of them allowing drivers to risk injury outside of F1.

As for different training, some of the different type so series require a different style of driving... and some drivers like Kubica believe that a different series can help the F1 driver by focusing on additional things.

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Coool.

I can understand the changes and how team managers not liking their drivers do more than one kind of series.
Car racing can be dangerous and team managers want their drivers at the top of their games.

But it’s great to know some drivers did two styles of racing, Nicky I bet would have been great too in something like Le Mans. But he stayed only with F1.

This sport is super interesting to learn about and I hope to see more quality movies focused in it and hope to see more stuff like Rush and Ford V Ferrari.

I hope Ron Howard soon to work on an Aryton Senna film. I know there is a documentary but I want a big screen adaptation of his story.

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Several documentaries have been made on Senna, the best one was the one released in 2010. It is in the air as to whether their will ever be a movie made about him. At one time Antonio Banderas was being kicked around as the actor play him but that was a long time ago and Banderas is way to old to pull it off now.

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I know there are documentaries but Hollywood films are more fun hehe.

Anyway I was thinking RDJ as Senna. He would look great in the part or maybe Rodrigo Santoro.


did you like this ( Ford V Ferrari) and Rush ?
I enjoyed both very much but if I have to choose a winner is Rush.
Ron Howard got us much more invested in our main characters and thoughts made the races much more fun and exciting.


I think Ron Howard has been the most perfect sports movie director especially if it involves two main characters.

The king Richards film about Venus and Serena made it much more about Venus and Serena was almost second field.
In Ford Vs Ferrari we
It was much more about Ken Miles than Carol Shelby.
With Rush both Nicky and James were equally important and we got to truly know both characters equally well

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As I said in another post, the whole movie is completely pointless. Any car company could beat Ferrari in a motorsport competition if they spent enough money to do so. Red Bull is an energy drink company and even they can make faster cars than Ferrari does.

A lot of companies who make terrible consumer vehicles such as Ford and Renault have had great success in motorsport competitions over the years. I would laugh if this movie ever encouraged someone to buy a Ford just because they think that the absolute best Ford car can compete with a Ferrari. Yes, it can, but your Ford economy car is only a few years away from the auto graveyard! I guarantee this movie will increase Ford sales in 2020, and that's just laughable.

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Here are a couple of questions re Red Bull autos: Do they make a road car? No. Does Ferrari? Yes, several models. Does Red Bull build a complete car? No. Their engines are made by Honda. Does Ferrari build a complete F1 car? Yes.

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What's your point? Red Bull are 4x time world champions in an era where Ferrari are 0x champions. Red Bull F1 is also partnered with Aston Martin, so the technology developed in F1 ends up trickling down into those road vehicles. I'm not even a Red Bull fan. I'm not sure what you're arguing here.

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The point is that BUYING technology (by Red Bull) is not the same as DEVELOPING technology (by Ferrari).
I remember there was once a "TAG Heuer Engine developed by Porsche". And TAG Heuer was really pissed off because people called it the Porsche engine only...

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All your statements does is highlight how pathetic Ferrari is at making an actual race car... As you point out a energy drink company has kicked their ass over and over through the years... So why would anyone want to buy a car made by a car company that can't even beat a maker of energy drinks? Fact is Ferrari died when they were purchased by Fiat because they stopped focusing on trying to build race cars and started just trying to sell cars which were often horrible mechanically. I give them credit they can often make very beautiful cars, but they are still crap when it comes to reliability, my neighbor has one and has to spend about 2 grand every 6 months to get it tuned up...and he rarely drives it but the horrible things aren't meant to be driven just looked at.

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I didn't even know that Ferrari and Fiat were related in any way. That explains a lot. Fiat/Chrysler make some of the worst cars in the world.

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You didn't watch the movie?

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Why would I waste my time watching some pretentious Oscar bait?

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At least it didn't win.

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I enjoyed it quite a lot as exciting car racing entertainment, not a DOCUMENTARY

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I was thinking about buying an old 308 a few years ago and I was told to expect about $3,000 a year for regular maintenance.

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That would be if you rarely drove it and nothing went wrong. And every 3 years whether you drive or not you need to have the timing belt done which isn't cheap.

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Hey, Tom, did you know that 25 percent of the sale price of every Ferrari stole goes directly to the racing team? You obviously don’t. There is a saying in the racing community, y’know, people who actually know this sport, unlike you: “Porsche races to sell cars. Ferrari sells cars in order to race.” FIAT “bought” Ferrari to support an Italian national treasure.

Sheesh.

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You're living in the 60's if you believe that bullshit.

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Not at all. I have a good friend who owns 14 Ferraris, who goes to Modena regularly to buy a new one. He keeps me directly informed. How about you?

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Hot Wheels aren't real care dumb ass. And considering Ferrari's annual revenue is more than 4 billion euro, you are trying to claim Ferrari pumps 1 billion to their racing each year... Sorry but you are a complete idiot. F1 has a cost cap of 140 million do you expect people to believe they throw 869 million into club racing? You are a complete idiot. Go back to your mother's basement and learn before you spout such nonsense.

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Terrible consumer vehicles. LOL. Citation Needed.

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How about the fact that Ford knows their cars are so bad that they will no longer make anything except the Mustang and pickup trucks? They simply cannot compete with Honda and Toyota on reliability and they know it.

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Americans only buy trucks and Mustangs. Why would they need to make other type of vehicles?

Japanese car manufactures are going down one by one... Suzuki, Mitsubishi, and, in the near future, Infinity, Nissan, Subaru and Mazda. They just can't compete on making and selling trucks.

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Japanese car manufactures are going down one by one


Hilarious!! Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Infinity, Nissan, Subaru and Mazda; are all going strong. Just because you don't see them in Alabama or Missouri or wherever you live doesn't mean they aren't seen all over the world.

Also, the F150 although a decent truck does not compare in reliability to a Toyota, Subaru or Mazda

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Its Ford. Thats all the citation you need. Its funny that Ford in the movie claimed to be known for realiability, when in reality they are one of the worst in this regard, probably beaten only by GM. Even the knockoff eastasian brands like KIA show better results than Ford.

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It's not pointless at all, it's compelling drama. Ford Motor Co. vs. Ferrarri SpA. Henry Ford II vs. Old Man Ferrari. Shelby vs. Beebe. Ken Miles vs. the world and the perfect lap. Lee Iacocca vs. Ford's yes men. Great movie.

Obviously when you plunk down 27K for a Ford Mustang, you're not getting a world class race car. It's still quite an accomplishment to design, build, modify and race one that dominates the world for 4 years.

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I drive a stock 1959 F-100 pickup with its original 170 c.i. in-line 6. Still low-maintenance and cheap to operate. A damned good product. My dad had a '67 Falcon that he drove until he passed away in 2005. That baby must have had nearly half a million miles on it when I sold it to a guy who's still driving it. There are more Model A's still on the road today than all other late-1920s/early 1930s cars combined. Ford has always made good consumer vehicles.

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Except for that spell in the 80's and 90's.......The Pinto comes to mind, as well as the Mustang my mother had to sue to get her money back on (Lemon Law).

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You mean, when the rest of the world rebuilt after WW2 and Ford never been making good cards since?

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No way in hell a 1959 F-100 pickup with an original engline, or a 1967 Falcon would go over 200k with low-maintenance... Fords are not bad but they don't hold a candle to Toyotas or Hondas when it comes to performance or cost of ownership.

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Any car company could beat Ferrari in a motorsport competition if they spent enough money to do so.


That's true, but it isn't as if Ford spent millions to build an engine from a clean sheet just for that purpose or buy a race engine from a builder. The engines built for LeMans were done in-house. They did base the chassis of the GT40 on a Lola design and heavily modifed it IIRC, but all GTs that ran at LeMans used one of two Ford engines that were modified versions of V8 engines that had been available in the Mustang and Fairlane (small block version) and Galaxie (big block version) before the GT program was started.

Ferrari used the engines they made for their cars which were *designed* to be high performance and temperamental race engines. Ford used their own corporate engines which were designed for reliability, longevity, low cost, and indifferent to all but the most lax maintenance and still managed to win.

In that way at least, those were Ford products based on millions of V8 engines sold to consumers that were already in the corporate parts bin.

With a long history of LeMans entries retiring mostly to engine failure, that's pretty impressive.

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Well, the senior Henry Ford had his workers beat to hell when they dared strike. So, the Ford family is who they are.

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Hmm... I may have to buy a Ford next time...

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Good fascist.

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Thanks. Don't you have some government teat to suckle on?

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