[Closed] Ford v Ferrari thoughts?? (possible small spoilers?)

SPOILER ALERT - loved it and hated it!

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE

The acting is top notch - Christian Bale was fantastic at capturing the essence of Ken Miles and Damon and the rest of the cast were excellent but the screenplay was a mess from a historical perspective and whoever was responsible for set direction should never be allowed to work again.

My first question to whoever was responsible for writing this movie was 'what happened to 1964?'. The next question is why leave out Daytona and Sebring in 1965? They were the first two races that the Ford GT40 ran after Shelby American took over the project and Ford, with Miles driving, won!

All this was sacrificed because they thought it was necessary to make Miles a talented loser who was saved by Shelby and the GT40 project. The truth was that when Shelby was approached by Ford to take over the GT40 program, Miles was already Shelby American's director of competition, had spearheaded the building of the Cobra Daytona Coupe and had stuffed a 427 engine into a Cobra roadster.

It is true that the suits at Ford, and many of their engineers both in Dearborn and at Ford Advanced Vehicles in England, didn't like Miles, they never kept him out of a race. That part with the 'no plane ticket for you' was just silly. It is doubly silly because Miles raced at LeMans in 1965 with the very first 427 engine MKII.

I don't think any of these changes in history did anything to enhance the film.

Finally, would it have killed them to recognize that in endurance racing you have two drivers?

misstated about Daytona in 1965 -

It was only a 2000 KM race in 1965 not a 24 hour race but it was indeed won by Miles & Ruby - they were then first in class at Sebring with Miles & McLaren driving and then did several races in Europe prior to Le Mans again with Miles and Mclaren. It was at those races where Miles and others concluded that they needed to go to the 427 engine and the MKII was born, two were hastily thrown together, and raced at Le Mans in 1965 along with three of the MKI cars. All five failed to finish.

It seems like the only reason why they made the movie the way they did is they wanted present Miles as being unbeatable - something that is obviously not true. Either that or they felt that had to have that loving husband and wife moment.

It's really enjoyable. I saw it today (Monday).

Events have been massively simplified out of necessity, and there is a lot of fictionalisation. For example the Daytona 24 Hours of 1966 is shown as ultra close and dramatic, when in fact Miles/Ruby won by a long way. However, none of the fundamental events have been changed. I thoroughly recommend seeing it.

I am going with ...

... "having husband and wife" moment. It was not a documentary after all, had to have something for everyone. I went to see the movie with my 16-year old son, who is about to get his driver's license. He loved it, there is so much extra in the move: love, hate, ambition, rivalry, passion, friendship, life, death, bravery, fatherhood etc. This is the story he will remember, he is not going to dig the history details like we do. I think it was a great movie after all.

I agree it is not a documentary and it shouldn't be. My point is that it could have been more accurate without changing the movie.

You are probably right Frank.

Many thanks for explaining the movie ... good info

Wow! Great back stories, history & feedback! Excellent guys; thanks!

Thank you, sir!

I saw it today. Wow!! Lots of exhilaration and heart-skipping beats here. Loved it.

Saw it, loved it, I apologize. This is pretty much what I would expect from Hollywood. I was entertained, love seeing these old cars. I liked Rush, LeMans, Grand Prix and even the Stalone Indy movie (don't have that one though). Maybe someday this will be done as a documentary with facts and more realistic footage (I would guess a lot of black and white stuff) and I would love to watch that too. One thing I was told well before the movie (10 years ago) I think Dad said it was from a book by Lee Iacoca, Henry Ford Jr relieved himself, not cried, but who knows? Bottom line, I recommend seeing it even for auto enthusiast and take it with a grain of salt, I will buy it when released and would love to see a longer version, and I will buy it too. I think we expected too much from Hollywood.

Two of my buddies, who AREN'T car geeks like me, went also and they loved it too !

I saw the Movie Yesterday

Typical Hollywood Movie, very entertaining somewhat factual. I worked at Ford Dynamometer during the LeMans racing. Test cell 17-D was setup with an engine, transaxle hooked up to two Dynamometers at the axle shafts. The throttle, clutch and transmission shifting was controlled by a tape that simulated the LeMans track. The engine was run 24 hours to simulate the race. After problems were corrected the engine package had to run 48 hours straight before it was released to run at LeMans.