Tag: Ford versus 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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Movie Review: The 24 Hour War

Gresh’s review of Ford versus Ferrari had my attention, and SWMBO wanted to see the movie, so off to the theatre we went.  My take on it was pretty much identical to Joe’s:  Grand entertainment, lots of grimaces and Hollywood liberties with the facts, but overall, an entertaining if not entirely accurate flick.

Later that evening, we were channel surfing and we flopped over to Netflix, and what do you know, a documentary titled The 24 Hour War popped up.  I know Amazon, Facebook, and others use all kinds of spyware to figure out what to pitch to us next, but wow, this was amazing.  That very day, and a pop up for another movie about the great Ford versus Ferrari war and Le Mans.  Hey, in for a penny, in for a pound, so we watched The 24 Hour War.

Unlike Ford v. Ferrari, The 24 Hour War took no liberties with the truth, the facts, the timelines, or the vehicles themselves.  It was a damn fine bit of actual, factual reporting, and I enjoyed it more than the movie we had seen earlier that day.  If you get Netflix, it’s free, and if you own a microwave and a refrigerator, you won’t have to pay $15 for popcorn and a couple of Cokes (like Gresh did).

A few more good things about The 24 Hour War:  It went into much more detail about Henry Ford and Enzo Ferrari (I found that interesting), and portions of the show were narrated by A.J. Baime.  Mr. Baime does a series on interesting cars people still drive in The Wall Street Journal and I love his writing.   I’m just finishing up a book by Baime about our industrial mobilization prior to and during World War II, and it, too, focuses heavily on the Ford family.   The guy is a great writer, and I’ll have a review here on Baime’s book, The Arsenal of Democracy, in the near future.

One more thing regarding the cars themselves:  To me, it’s not really a contest and I don’t much care who won Le Mans.   Given the choice between owning a Ford GT or a Ferrari, to me the answer is obvious:   It’s Ferrari all day long.

But I digress.  Back to the review.  The bottom line?  Ford versus Ferrari was an entertaining movie, but the The 24 Hour War is an absolutely outstanding documentary.  I think you’ll enjoy it.