Ford was sincere. Ferrari was not.
Ford v Ferrari
A review by Johnny L.A.
Good movie. Nice cars.
I couldn’t resist. More to come. 
I’m not a huge racing fan. When I suggested to Mrs. L.A. that we see Ford v Ferrari she said, ‘I thought you didn’t like racing.’ Actually, I do not like NASCAR. (‘Rednecks turning left’, ‘NeckCar’.) I do like watching F1, CART, and Grand Prix (and motorcycles), though I haven’t watched a race in years. I currently have an MGB, and I used to have a Porsche 911SC. I like cars.
We went to see Ford v Ferrari yesterday afternoon. I went for the cars, and I think that Mrs. L.A. went because she likes Christian Bale and Matt Damon. She also tends to like true stories. We both enjoyed it. She enjoyed it so much, she spent the rest of the evening reading about the competition, Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles, and others online. Many names were familiar to us. Mrs. L.A. wondered how many of the young people in the audience knew who Lee Iacocca was.
Early in the film I whispered to her, ‘That looks like Willow Springs.’ See, we used to live in the Antelope Valley and I’d been to motorcycle races there. (Her dad took her to Saugus frequently, so she had never gone to Willow Springs.) Not being a huge racing fan, all I knew about Le Mans 1966 was that Ford fielded a car that finally beat Ferrari. I didn’t know the backstory. In the film, I assumed that Willow Springs Raceway was standing in, in a generic manner, for some other track. Moments after I whispered my comment to Mrs. L.A., they said it was Willow Springs in the film. That was pretty cool; both that they filmed the scenes where we used to live, and that some racing history really was made there.
During the climactic race, I was surprised to see a Porsche 911. There really was a 911 in the race, a private entry by a French driver, number 35. (Porsche entered the 906.)
Of course I picked out the '70s-model Cessna Skyhawk at Santa Monica Airport. It was just there, in the background and out of focus. It had nothing to do with the movie, but… Pilot.
The film had several chuckles. There was the NASCAR ‘turning left’ put-down, the aftermath of the wrench-throwing scene, and others. Both of us liked the scene where Ken Miles’s wife started driving their station wagon like a race car. 
I need more coffee, so I’ll just say that Ford v Ferrari is a thoroughly enjoyable show. Good movie. Nice cars.
Ha! Well, back at you - I’m pretty sure the Peterbilt cabover hooked up to the (I can’t be sure but 1980’s possibly vintage) car hauler full of Fords was a 1970s vintage.
And I must say - the scene where Miles was at Shelby listening to the race, and the passing plane’s lights made the trailer full of cars looks like there were Ford GTs driving behind him was pretty well done!
I saw it and thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the cars, and enjoyed seeing all the 1960s and some 50s cars. I’ve got a Porsche 356, and enjoyed Shelby driving his red one.
One question, it wasn’t clear to me and maybe it was explained in the film and I missed it, but when the GT40 is first introduced in the movie, it is shown with a jet plane in the background (this isn’t my question but was that a Lockheed L-1011?). My question is, where did the GT40 come from? There wasn’t any story about it being created and built. Did they buy it from another company?
As with many things in the movie, they kind of glossed over that.
Ford went to Lola before they went to Shelby. The first GTs were made in collaboration with Lola. These were the ones that failed to finish Le Mans. THEN they were given intact to Shelby.
I’m not sure about the aircraft, but it’s not an L-1011. The L-1011 had a conventional empennage, and the movie plane has a T-tail. I’m thinking Boeing 727.
The GT40 was built by Lola in England, using a 289 Ford Fairlane engine (same as in the Lola GT).
Thank you both. And Johnny, T-tail and not a conventional empennage, yeah probably a 727, got it, thanks.
So does anyone know what became of the douche-bag Ford exec? I kept hoping that Shelby would tell him he was fired and Henry would back him up.
According to Screen Rant:
This article indicates Beebe got a bum steer in the film. People who knew him had positive things to say about him. As for his career:
Here’s a surprise twist I bet you never saw coming - IRL Beebe wasn’t the douche portrayed in the movie. He was II’s “fixer”. they worked together during the war. He wasn’t threatened by Shelby. Was he really a jerk, though? Who can say.
The finish at Le Mans was not solely Beebe’s fault, and if you look at the actual finish photo McClaren crossed ahead of Miles anyway, so the question was moot.
From the link at the bottom of the previous page:
Wait… What… we can’t take everything we see in movies at face value? MIND BLOWN!!
I’m still sure someone had the opinion that he was a douche for him to be shown this way in the film.
Yeah, a movie made people think Gus Grissom screwed the pooch too. 
That one pisses me off more. *The Right Stuff *(film) really didn’t like astronauts, and to slander the dead guy is really bad.
(For the record for non-space heads, Gus was the commander of the first Gemini mission. If NASA thought he was unreliable, they wouldn’t have given him that job. I suspect he might have been commanding the first lunar landing mission, too, or at least on it, but who knows.)
In case anyone’s confused: This is about sports car racing (with fenders), not Gran Prix (no fenders).
It’s not the movie that’s responsible for this, it’s the book that it was based on, written by Tom Wolfe. It’s an interesting book but it seems to me that Wolfe was just desperate for some kind of controversial angle on Grissom’s mission and so he leaned into the idea that Gus made the wrong call. Obviously he was not inside the capsule with the guy, so it’s just conjecture anyway.
I haven’t read the book in decades, so if that is in there, amend my post to remove (the film).
Considering the film never got the meaning of the title correct, I just figured they didn’t keep the Gus parts of the book the same either.
I’m a racing fan (F1 and IndyCar) and have done some non-competitive track driving, and I enjoyed it. I knew a little about the story and learned a little more.
ISTR hearing, before seeing it, that it had no CGI, but as I was watching I was 95% sure there had to be some, based on otherwise impossible camera moves. I’d be interested in being proven wrong, if anyone finds out.
As someone with some track driving experience there were a number of things that struck me as mildly to wildly wrong. I thought Miles was being unrealistically rough on his shifter, but since I’m no expert in cars of this vintage, I could be wrong. Anyone know?
One thing I’m more sure was wrong was the way the drivers looked at each other when they were side-by-side or passing: they’d slowly turn their heads and lock eyes for a second or two. While traveling at nearly 200 mph! At that speed you’re covering a football field every second! No one looks away that long – or at all – at that speed.
The most egregious and annoying was a common Hollywood racing trope: two cars are racing neck-and-neck, when one slams the pedal to the floor and passes the other. WTF? You were running alongside this guy for 10-20 seconds, straining every muscle, and you weren’t at full throttle?
While I absolutely HATE that trope, along with the “upshift and accelerate faster” one, it at least makes sense in the context of the movie - running the engines too high led to increased wear and tear, something to be avoided at all costs considering the time period and race. You simply didn’t redline the engine, for fear of 'splosions. Though I don’t know, but I would guess rev limiters weren’t around in the 60s. Simply put, if you put the pedal all the way to the floor, you could blow your engine - coincidentally, what happened to the lead Ferrari in the movie.