Tag: Ferrari

Ferrari versus…Jeep?

You’ve probably seen the movie Ferrari versus Ford a few years ago about Enzo Ferrari, Henry Ford II, Carrol Shelby, and the 24 hours of Le Mans.  As flicks go, it was decent show.   Ford GTs are cool and so are Ferraris, made even more so by their stint in the police show a few years ago where a Ferrari Testarossa shared top billing with the two actors who played the good guys.  That show had one of the greatest intro scenes ever:

I didn’t know why that show and the Miami Vice sound track was playing in my mind repeatedly for the last day or so, and then it hit me:  Joe Gresh posted an old passport photo on Facebook.  Take a look and tell me what you think:

Gresh is a Jeep man, though, through and through.  Like me, I think he’d have a hard time even getting into a Ferrari.  Hence the title of this blog.

A bit about the Ferraris on Miami Vice.  It’s shades of Long Way Around all over again, you know, when those two dilettantes who call themselves adventure riders wanted to borrow a couple of KTMs and do a show about going around the world on motorcycles.  KTM wouldn’t cough up the bikes, so BMW stepped in with their GS ADV bikes, and Starbuck’s parking lots haven’t been the same since.

Something similar happened on Miami Vice.  Its producer asked Ferrari to give them two Testarossas and the answer was no.  So they had two kit cars made up using Corvettes as the base car and Enzo went nuts.  He sued the kit car company, but in the end,  he coughed up the two real Ferraris so Don Johnson could be authentic.  Not as authentic as Joe Gresh in a Jeep, but more than he would have been otherwise.

One more thing about Miami Vice:  A lot of big name actors got their start on that show.   Take a look:

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ExNotes Review: Ford vs Ferrari

Caution: Spoilers ahead!

When did two sodas and a bag of popcorn top 15 dollars? I mean, come on dude!  I’m not a big movie-goer because it seems like everything is either superhero stuff or some depressing Nazi thing.  Anyway, us gasoline burner types are starved for content when it comes to full-length movies. We get nothing on the big screen but engine sounds mismatched to the motorcycles and grease monkey stereotypes. When something like Ford vs Ferrari comes along we tend to fall all over ourselves praising the damn thing.  And it’s not a bad movie.  People are clamoring for Oscar nominations.  I don’t know, man, it makes us look kinda thirsty.

Matt Damon does a good job playing Carroll Shelby, although my wife says you never forget it’s Matt Damon as Jason Bourne playing Carroll Shelby. I didn’t recognize any of the other actors so I could accept that they were who they were. There were a few unpleasant characters planted by Hollywood to give the story a villain.

One Ford executive was made out to be petty and vindictive. I have no idea if he was that way in real life. Lee Iacocca was an eager sort, the company man trying to make stuff happen between the stuffy corporate world and Shelby’s hot rod culture. Henry Ford II was shown as cold and authoritarian, much like you would expect him to be. The Ferrari driver had a Simon Legree, comic-villain look that brought me back to the movie theater every time he glared at the hero Ken Miles.

Ferrari was a foil for Ford in this movie. We really don’t get to see much of them. After the Le Mans race begins Ford II flies off to dinner in a helicopter while Mr. Ferrari stays in his seat to watch. I guess that was to show the different level of commitment to the sport. It seems like old man Ferrari never slept the entire 24 hours of Le mans.

One of the movie’s main story arcs was how Ken Miles was forced off the team for Ford’s first attempt at Le Mans. That bad-guy Ford executive is to blame. Of course real life is less complex and Ken Miles ran that 1965 event breaking down after 45 laps due to a bad transmission. Little things like that make you suspect the rest of the story.

Ken Miles’ character was a sort of rebel against the car sellers. The Suits irritated him to no end. I know we are supposed to cheer for him but he seemed like a pain in the ass to me. I’ve known guys like that: Bitching about the company while drawing a check. I figure that if Ford is paying you stacks of money to represent them, suck it up, you know? At least fake it, man.

Some of the Le Mans race scenes were pretty hokey looking, like something out of the old CHIPs television show. “Ponch, we got a freeze up!” Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed Ford vs Ferrari. I think you’ll probably enjoy it also. You shouldn’t watch a Hollywood movie expecting to get the facts (see Cinderella Man’s portrayal of Max Baer) and us gasoline burners don’t get many chances to hear the audio match the engines.