A PROGRESS REPORT: FORD VS.FERRARI
WILL A HIT MOVIE ABOUT CARROLL SHELBY INCREASE INTEREST IN GT40s?
by Wallace Wyss –
I’m hoping. Hollywood is not only talking about a GT40 film this time but actually lensing it as we speak. I already heard of one of the lead actors being trained to drive at Willow Springs and more racetrack work filmed near Savannah.
I look forward to the film’s release because I represent the generation of car enthusiasts who were thrilled in the ‘60s to hear an American team won LeMans.
Plus a good many of us are nostalgic about the good old days when men were men and cars were pure mechanical devices, not computerized.
If the movie (shooting name Ford vs. Ferrari) with Matt Damon and Christian Bale, is good drama, and has accurate sets showing California, Michigan, UK, Italy, France as they looked back then, we will all want to see it in order to revel in a slice of European racing Sixties style.
I am a little dubious California can “stand in” for Italy, but hey, with CGI, they can do anything right?
REAL CARS WILL GO UP
Because this film and a rival TV series (temporary name THE DRIVERS) from Legendary Entertainment, will undoubtedly feature replica Cobras, GT40s and Shelby Mustangs, a whole new audience will be introduced to the excitement of cars they might have not been aware existed. The looks, the sound, the sheer muscle of the cars will seduce a whole new audience.
So the real cars will get a boost. Especially those that are squeezed into a scene as background (you can bet owners of real cars are trying to reach the producers as we speak). I predict small block racing Cobras with a proven racing record in the Sixties (“in period”) will go up to one million. Big block Cobras, ironically, won’t go up as much because by the time they came along Shelby was busy trying to turn Ford’s GT40 loser into a winner. Ford didn’t even want to sponsor the big block 427 Cobra in racing. It was like trying to sell the virtues of a six shot revolver against a Colt 45 semi-automatic. Or a prop fighter vs. a jet.
And even replicas will get a boost; first those with alloy bodies that came out of England before Shelby got into the replica business. And then the ones made by Shelby in more recent years. And replica GT40s, the most important being the Safir Mk.V cars that Ford licensed an English company to build, that are exact copies.
EVEN CLOTHING
And I’ll make a further prediction. If there are enough good pictures taken of actors on set, actors like Damon and Bail, then suddenly there will be a new popularity of Sixties clothing styles, maybe even the Stetsons like Shelby wore.
You wonder if the movie will have Sixties music? Wasn’t this when the Beatles were big? (I was there but not paying attention, being somewhat occupied with career, US Army, and whatnot).
VINTAGE RACING CHANGE SLATE
Vintage racing could boom as well. People who really are in a fog about marques like Lotus might suddenly want to go to a race if there’s Cobras vs. Ferraris. Come to think of it, I’m suggesting that right now as the theme for 2019 vintage races at Monterey, Ferrari GTOs against real Cobras…and real GT40s vs. Ferrari prototypes.
MEMORABILIA
Documented memorabilia, such as books signed by Shelby. And then glossy pictures from Ford’s huge photo archive. Not to mention paintings of famous Cobra-GT40 vs. Ferrari battles and even crewmen working in the pits back in the day. And sculpture. It’s a whole renaissance if the movie is boffo (Hollywood talk for a hit)
BUSINESS VENTURES NEWLY POPULAR
I think “business stories” could become more popular as a result of Ford vs. Ferrari becoming a success. The behind-the-scenes bare knuckle fighting, the wheeling and dealing. Nobody was more of a wheeler dealer than Shelby. As one Ford executive said “Whenever I shook hands with Shelby, I always counted to make sure I had all my fingers….”
REALITY OR DRAMA?
When I attended the recent Monterey Car Week, I went there first as a reporter, second as a fine artist to sell prints of my paintings and third to find any old timers who knew the real story of the Sixties to see if they liked the direction that has been announced for the plotline in many trade magazines including Hollywood Reporter. Which is: Shelby and Miles designing a Ferrari beater (presumably the GT40) from scratch. Of course anyone who has read the dozen books on the GT40 (including several of my one) knows that in point of fact Ford bystepped Shelby, figuring hey the Cobra was not very high tech and the GT40 was, so we don’t need him. But they came back hat in hand after failing at every race and asked him to take charge of developing the car in ’65. But that’s not the storyline they are going for. They want, according to three people I talked to who were already paid to consult, and talked to the director, they want drama, with a capital “D” particularly about Miles, who has actors cast to play his wife and son.
There were so many false alarms on a Shelby film, I had stopped looking for announcements. I didn’t even find out Fox was filming until June and they started announcing casting in January.(Matt Damon plays Shelby and Christian Bale plays Miles). But there’s still hope they may deign to consult with me (book rights to two books for sale will be thrown in) and certainly it would be cheaper to have the storyline right before the June 2019 release than to re-shoot, re-dub or re anything. I have some experience in this subject , having been previously tied in with a British producer who was going to do a TV series on the same subject based on my book SHELBY: the Man, the Cars, the Legend, but they dropped the whole project for a sci-fi series instead.
And so it is. At this posting, we are but eight months from the feature's release (No timetable available on the TV series). Either the feature will be a dog like RUSH, or a hit in the long run like LeMans. I’m hoping, for the sake of all those retired racers and mechanics and engineers who were in the GT40 program the story is told right.
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss can be reached at [email protected]
WILL A HIT MOVIE ABOUT CARROLL SHELBY INCREASE INTEREST IN GT40s?
by Wallace Wyss –
I’m hoping. Hollywood is not only talking about a GT40 film this time but actually lensing it as we speak. I already heard of one of the lead actors being trained to drive at Willow Springs and more racetrack work filmed near Savannah.
I look forward to the film’s release because I represent the generation of car enthusiasts who were thrilled in the ‘60s to hear an American team won LeMans.
Plus a good many of us are nostalgic about the good old days when men were men and cars were pure mechanical devices, not computerized.
If the movie (shooting name Ford vs. Ferrari) with Matt Damon and Christian Bale, is good drama, and has accurate sets showing California, Michigan, UK, Italy, France as they looked back then, we will all want to see it in order to revel in a slice of European racing Sixties style.
I am a little dubious California can “stand in” for Italy, but hey, with CGI, they can do anything right?
REAL CARS WILL GO UP
Because this film and a rival TV series (temporary name THE DRIVERS) from Legendary Entertainment, will undoubtedly feature replica Cobras, GT40s and Shelby Mustangs, a whole new audience will be introduced to the excitement of cars they might have not been aware existed. The looks, the sound, the sheer muscle of the cars will seduce a whole new audience.
So the real cars will get a boost. Especially those that are squeezed into a scene as background (you can bet owners of real cars are trying to reach the producers as we speak). I predict small block racing Cobras with a proven racing record in the Sixties (“in period”) will go up to one million. Big block Cobras, ironically, won’t go up as much because by the time they came along Shelby was busy trying to turn Ford’s GT40 loser into a winner. Ford didn’t even want to sponsor the big block 427 Cobra in racing. It was like trying to sell the virtues of a six shot revolver against a Colt 45 semi-automatic. Or a prop fighter vs. a jet.
And even replicas will get a boost; first those with alloy bodies that came out of England before Shelby got into the replica business. And then the ones made by Shelby in more recent years. And replica GT40s, the most important being the Safir Mk.V cars that Ford licensed an English company to build, that are exact copies.
EVEN CLOTHING
And I’ll make a further prediction. If there are enough good pictures taken of actors on set, actors like Damon and Bail, then suddenly there will be a new popularity of Sixties clothing styles, maybe even the Stetsons like Shelby wore.
You wonder if the movie will have Sixties music? Wasn’t this when the Beatles were big? (I was there but not paying attention, being somewhat occupied with career, US Army, and whatnot).
VINTAGE RACING CHANGE SLATE
Vintage racing could boom as well. People who really are in a fog about marques like Lotus might suddenly want to go to a race if there’s Cobras vs. Ferraris. Come to think of it, I’m suggesting that right now as the theme for 2019 vintage races at Monterey, Ferrari GTOs against real Cobras…and real GT40s vs. Ferrari prototypes.
MEMORABILIA
Documented memorabilia, such as books signed by Shelby. And then glossy pictures from Ford’s huge photo archive. Not to mention paintings of famous Cobra-GT40 vs. Ferrari battles and even crewmen working in the pits back in the day. And sculpture. It’s a whole renaissance if the movie is boffo (Hollywood talk for a hit)
BUSINESS VENTURES NEWLY POPULAR
I think “business stories” could become more popular as a result of Ford vs. Ferrari becoming a success. The behind-the-scenes bare knuckle fighting, the wheeling and dealing. Nobody was more of a wheeler dealer than Shelby. As one Ford executive said “Whenever I shook hands with Shelby, I always counted to make sure I had all my fingers….”
REALITY OR DRAMA?
When I attended the recent Monterey Car Week, I went there first as a reporter, second as a fine artist to sell prints of my paintings and third to find any old timers who knew the real story of the Sixties to see if they liked the direction that has been announced for the plotline in many trade magazines including Hollywood Reporter. Which is: Shelby and Miles designing a Ferrari beater (presumably the GT40) from scratch. Of course anyone who has read the dozen books on the GT40 (including several of my one) knows that in point of fact Ford bystepped Shelby, figuring hey the Cobra was not very high tech and the GT40 was, so we don’t need him. But they came back hat in hand after failing at every race and asked him to take charge of developing the car in ’65. But that’s not the storyline they are going for. They want, according to three people I talked to who were already paid to consult, and talked to the director, they want drama, with a capital “D” particularly about Miles, who has actors cast to play his wife and son.
There were so many false alarms on a Shelby film, I had stopped looking for announcements. I didn’t even find out Fox was filming until June and they started announcing casting in January.(Matt Damon plays Shelby and Christian Bale plays Miles). But there’s still hope they may deign to consult with me (book rights to two books for sale will be thrown in) and certainly it would be cheaper to have the storyline right before the June 2019 release than to re-shoot, re-dub or re anything. I have some experience in this subject , having been previously tied in with a British producer who was going to do a TV series on the same subject based on my book SHELBY: the Man, the Cars, the Legend, but they dropped the whole project for a sci-fi series instead.
And so it is. At this posting, we are but eight months from the feature's release (No timetable available on the TV series). Either the feature will be a dog like RUSH, or a hit in the long run like LeMans. I’m hoping, for the sake of all those retired racers and mechanics and engineers who were in the GT40 program the story is told right.
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss can be reached at [email protected]