Ken Miles and the Ford Story

[Rtrorkt]

Watched this video today. Seems a bit stilted and with what seems an AI generated voice. But it does tell the Ken Miles story and another one I did not know, Eric Broadly of Lola Cars. Interestingly Ford had the Lola Mk 6 at the historics at Laguna some years ago. If you like racing this is a pretty good use of 30 min

[pwd72s]

Thanks for posting...I liked it.

[Rapewta]

Watched the video and some things I didn't know were discussed.
Ken Miles is a Hero in my eyes. Bruce Mclaren really screwed Ken.
I didn't know that much about the Lola/Eric Broadly connection.
Thanks for putting the video up. Great stuff.

[Tobra]

Ai bs

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Ai bs

The video is an editorialized version of the story, mostly true. Using "fair use" 2 second clips of film footage from who knows how many sources, they pieced together the film. The clip of Miles crash wasn't even close to Riverside but they never said it was. Just like the clip of Carter and Gerald Ford from 1970 and a Michigan bank building @13:39, what do either have to do with anything racing? It was an AI grab since the words "Ford" and "empire" were mentioned. At 6:40 they show mechanics working on a 4-banger. Just prior to that there is a shot of a pile of tools in the dirt. Yeah, right.

Of course the AI voice is one of the first and most recognized. These productions are numerous from serious video makers just like books written about the history of the Ford project. A lot of stories have conclusions based on this and that. Few have a bibliography to back it up.

Interestingly, I was working at the fiberglass shop that built the prototype J-car. It was just down the street from Holman and Moody when they had a shop on Hill St. in Signal Hill, CA. H&M played a big part in a lot of Ford development. The shot at 4:15 and 7:45 is very likely in the H&M shop, not some big Ford facility. Right after the 4:15 clip is a pic of the awful rear end addition that did not work whatsoever.

This is and entertainment documentary based on commonly known information. I wouldn't call it BS but it's not anything new and should not be seriously considered a an accurate historical documentary.

Note: writing this had me going out to the garage and looking at a decal on my old tool box for Berry Plasti-Glass (Signal Hill) that made hard tops for MG's and Healey's ass well as a dune buggy knock off called the Berry Mini T, a melding of the Meyers Manx and a T-bucket roadster. The also made knock off Italian fiberglass furniture. IDK how they got the contract to build the J-car but a GT-40 was sitting in the shop for a few days. I was 19 and didn't have the presence of mind to understand the impact of what we were doing. The J-car was ugly with a Lotus Europa rear inspired design. I don't know exactly what happened to the Ken Miles car, whether we built the actual body that crashed, and what happened. Did it lift due to design or did part of the body fail? I was gone by the September date of the crash working climbing poles for a private telcom company. They were next door and paid more.

But back to Tobra, he is right about AI in this.

[Rapewta]

Ron Butler was a mechanic and crew chief for the GT40 period. I would ask him about Ken Miles
whenever I had an opportunity.
I bought one of Butler Racing Inc. AC Cobra kits.
Anyway, Ron liked Ken and would mimic how the talked out of the side of his mouth.

[flipper35]

I would have rather read an article than listen to this. Info wasn't bad, the script and AI narrator were.

[Rtrorkt]

ok, smart guys, I know that it was AI generated and I get the weird mis-matched images. Just asking if the Lola connection is actual. Given corporate behavior I can imagine that Ford had no issues in screwing Lola and Miles.

[flipper35]

They originally were going to use an existing Lola chassis from my understanding but they didn't work well enough to keep developing is my understanding so basically made a new chassis based on his designs.

[stealthn]

Have I said I hate AI?