Enzo Ferrari's cars ruled sports-car racing,
Le Mans especially.
At the start of the decade,
he had won the famous and gruelling 24-hour race
three times on the trot.
However, the company was in deep financial difficulty,
so when Ford offered to buy the entire business,
Enzo agreed.
At first, all went well.
Enzo Ferrari and the head of Ford, Henry Ford II,
quickly settled on a price of $16 million.
And on May 21st 1963,
Ford executives arrived in Maranello to sign the deal.
Ford turned up with an army of suits.
Enzo Ferrari sat opposite them
with just the local town lawyer.
They read the contract and all seemed well,
but then, suddenly, Ferrari stopped
and he took out his famous fountain pen full of purple ink,
and as you can see from this accurate copy I have here,
he drew a big exclamation mark and he wrote,
"No, that's no good!"
Now, what had angered him? Well, it was this clause here.
You see, Enzo Ferrari wanted to retain control
of the motorsport side of his business,
but this bit effectively handed control to Ford.
There followed a tirade of abuse in Italian,
after which, Enzo said to his lawyer, "Let's go and eat."
Then they got up and they simply walked out on the stunned Ford executives.
That was that.
All of this for nothing.
Back in Detroit, Henry Ford II,
apoplectic with rage,
gathered his lieutenants and issued the order:
"Build me a car that will crush Ferrari at Le Mans."
To beat Ferrari on European soil,
Ford needed European expertise,
so he hired a small British motorsport company
that set up shop here, in this very building,
on an industrial estate in Slough, just outside London.
And the challenges they faced were enormous.
They had to build a car that would race at over 200mph,
which was something that had never been done before,
and it had to be reliable for the 24 hours of the Le Mans race -
a race in which you changed gear 9,000 times
and drove flat out for 3,000 miles.
And, as if that wasn't bad enough, they only had ten months to do it.
Out of that insane timetable emerged this.
The Ford GT.
Thanks to its sleek shape and the body that stood just 40-inches tall,
it promised to cut through the air like a missile.
Add a 4.2L V8,
and the magic target of 200mph seemed in the bag.
The trouble is, a racing car is just a collection of hopes and dreams
until it gets on the track.
And that's something that Ford learned in a very brutal way
when they took the GT40 to test at Le Mans for the first time.
REPORTER: And so to the first Le Mans practice session.
JAMES: On its first outing, the renamed GT40 was fast,
but it was also terrifyingly unstable,
spinning its wheels on the straights.
I'm not talking about when you set off,
I mean it was happening at 170mph!
Now, the problem was either aerodynamics or suspension,
but they never found out,
because, later that day, the car crashed at 160mph.
Well, that was OK. They had a spare one, of course.
The next day, that crashed as well.
Le Mans was just two months away.
Against all odds, Ford got their act together in time for the 1964 race.
REPORTER: The Le Mans 24 Hour Race at last,
and three gleaming Ford GTs are present.
JAMES: But during the race itself,
all the cars broke down or caught fire,
leaving bitter rivals Ferrari
to take another one-two-three victory.