The 24 Hour War Documentary

[Nickshu]

I just watched this last night. It's free on Amazon Video if you are a Prime subscriber.

Pretty well done documentary about the Ford vs. Ferrari saga in endurance racing in the 1960's at Lemans, Sebring, Daytona. They did a good job of covering the history of both companies from the beginning and the impact of WW1 and WW2 on both carmakers and auto racing.

The list of interviewees was impressive and included archived footage of Carroll Shelby and others.

Worth watching. If you don't do Amazon it's probably available elsewhere.

[GG Allin]

Watched it last night too. Never knew the story behind the Ford 1 2 3 finish and how it screwed the real winner out of the win. Sad that he died before getting another shot at it.

[sammyg2]

Ferrari used a ferrari.
Ford did not use a ford.

[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Ferrari used a ferrari.
Ford did not use a ford.

Yes and no according to the documentary. The later generation GT40 that Ford was winning with was using off the shelf Ford parts available from any dealer especially on the engine.

Also its not like Ferrari was using cars you could just go to your local dealership and buy.

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[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Nickshu

Yes and no according to the documentary. The later generation GT40 that Ford was winning with used off the shelf Ford parts especially on the engine.

Also its not like Ferrari was using cars you could just go to your local dealership and buy.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Agreed you couldn't get the Ferrari race cars at the dealer, but with enough $$$$ the dealer could get them from the factory for you.

You can buy a factory race car from Ferrari just like you can from Porsche. They both have race classes and spec cars and spec car racing organizations.

Ferrari offers three different racing versions of the 488: GTE, GT3, and Challenge.
And I bet they'd sell you anything else you want if you have enough $$$$$.
Including an F-1 car.

Porsche offers the 919 hybrid, the 911 RSR and GT3R and cup. And just about anything else $$$$$$.

Try buying a factory race car from ford, they'll give you the number to a local race-car fab shop.


The racing GT-40 engine blocks were made by ford, but that's about it.
The cars were based on a Lola mark 6 and were made in England by or for Lola, all but the mark 4 which was the only GT40 made in the USA.
I believe Dan Gurney's shop built them but I'd have to look it up to be sure.

The street versions probably had factory engines and some other parts, but only a small fraction of the race car parts were actually made by the ford factory.

It's a great story, it is fun to watch and follow, with great heroics and great cars.
But I have a problem when people say that ford beat Ferrari. They didn't. They hired someone to beat Ferrari on their behalf.
And there's nothing wrong with that as long as we don't re-write history to make it something it wasn't.

[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

It's a great story, it is fun to watch and follow, with great heroics and great cars.
But I have a problem when people say that ford beat Ferrari. They didn't. They hired someone to beat Ferrari on their behalf.
And there's nothing wrong with that as long as we don't re-write history to make it something it wasn't.

True and I agree on that to some degree....but....

Sure you can go buy a new race prepped 488 at the Ferrari dealer in 2017. But in the 1960's were they selling their race cars at the local dealership? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

The film does talk about how Enzo was building sedans and GT cars for the public in the 1960's to fund his racing program, and had a partnership with Fiat to make this possible.

Ford appears to have designed the first GT40 with their own in house engineers, which was a good start but loaded with problems as evidenced by their initial troubles. As you know it was not until the brought in Carroll Shelby that they were able to tune the GT40 to win.

At the same time it was not until Enzo fired all his senior engineers and promoted a 22 year old rookie to the head of his race engineering division that they could be competitive again with Ford.

I think to say that Ferrari was competing and winning/dominating with "off the shelf" cars while Ford was building the space shuttle to beat Ferrari is a bit of an oversimplification. Both sides were surely custom engineering unique race-only stuff to compete with each other in the endurance racing equivalent of a space race. Same thing that goes on in racing today.

[black73]

Ford won.

[CurtEgerer]

Really enjoyed the movie. BUT .... what in the hell was Ralph Nader doing in it?! Nader in a racing documentary?? Going into his anti-auto schtick Luckily, it only lasted a few seconds.

[sugarwood]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

But I have a problem when people say that ford beat Ferrari. They didn't. They hired someone to beat Ferrari on their behalf.
And there's nothing wrong with that as long as we don't re-write history to make it something it wasn't.

Ferrari hired people to make race cars.
Ford also hired people to make race cars.
What's the difference?

[lgb240]

Good watch.