Ford Supervan

This is one of those rare occasions in Weird Car Land where you get to skip my ramblings and watch a YouTube video instead. Ford, ever the canny promoters of vehicles through speed records, produced this period film, complete with a Transatlantic accented narrator.

The Fo-ard Transsit Seupavahn’s Webah cab-rettors…

Although it's absolutely an achievement to win Le Mans, I can never quite agree with the strange folklore that surrounds the Ford GT40 program. Yes, we all know that Ford wanted to buy Ferrari and that, just before the deal was completed, Il Commendatore himself backed out at the 11th hour. 

Henry Ford II and other executives were so incensed at the $10 million deal going flat that Ford almost immediately decided to race — and beat — Ferrari at Le Mans.

There’s a movie about this?

What I don't get is the amazement people have that Ford was able to create the GT40 and win Le Mans. Doubt its involvement was a big enough line item in the yearly budget, even then.

In the '60s, Ford was a massive global company with race teams on every continent and sold hundreds of thousands of production cars annually. 

Ferrari, for all the magic, was a boutique automaker who hand-built dozens of vehicles per year…just enough to support its racing team, Scuderia Ferrari.

Ford's challenger for Le Mans, the GT40, wasn't some untested design. Ford could afford to develop the chassis in the UK, using a Lola Mk6 design as its base (they bought two for testing.) 

Ford could afford to develop a number of engines, using lessons learned from their experience in Formula 1, NASCAR, and the Indianapolis 500. Ford could also afford its pick of anyone for their team: with the likes of Carroll Shelby, Jackie Stewart, Jim Clark, and John Wyer in its corner, failure was not likely.

To me, Ford beating Ferrari at Le Mans is as much an achievement as an elephant crushing an ant. 

Too much hyperbole? Fine: an elephant crushing a watermelon.

By the time Ford won over Ferrari in 1966 (in its third attempt, now funding two factory teams) the firm had spent millions and had engaged some of the best and brightest race car engineers, team managers, engine builders, and race drivers in the world. 

Hell, the winning car, entered by Shelby-American Inc., was driven by the lines of Chris Amon and the Bruce McLaren. Top talent, top team, top results.

Ford’s Le Mans wins are great and all, but I appreciate the GT40 for another reason: it helped make the Supervan possible.

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