by A. J. Baime
In the pit Wyer and Lunn waited, eyeing stopwatches as the Ford made its maiden voyage around the historic 8.36 miles. Up under the Dunlop Bridge, down through the Esses, along the 3.5-mile Mulsanne Straight. Minutes later, Salvadori appeared again, rounding the White House bend at an easy pace. He pulled back into the pit, screeched to a stop, and got out of the car. From the look on his face, everyone in the pit could tell he wasn’t happy.
“I can’t believe this, John,” Salvadori said to Wyer, “but I think we’re getting rear wheel spin at 170 mph.”
Lunn and Wyer conferred. This was incredible—at that speed the rear of the car was lifting off the ground. An argument broke out. Was the problem aerodynamics, or a suspension issue? The latter idea won out and mechanics went to work, making adjustments. Salvadori was spooked; he wanted no part of this experiment and was done for the day.
Schlesser strapped on his helmet. Wyer leaned in and gave the French driver instructions, likely saying, “Do not take chances. Bring the car back in one piece.” Soon Schlesser was off, accelerating under the Dunlop Bridge and out of sight. In the pit the Ford team waited. A little over four minutes passed and Schlesser appeared, motoring out of the White House bend and past the empty grandstands. He was moving quickly, the V8 engine cranking power through fourth gear to the rear wheels. Again Schlesser moved under the Dunlop Bridge and the Ford disappeared. A minute passed. Then another. Eyes craned toward White House, waiting for Schlesser to turn the corner. Another minute passed. And another.
The car never appeared.
A phone call came in from the signaling pit on the far side of the track by the end of the Mulsanne Straight. There had been a crash. It appeared quite devastating, but word was, the driver was alive. When Schlesser appeared in the Ford pit, he was shaken and bleeding from a small gash on his forehead. He’d caught a ride back.
The car was fishtailing all the way down the straight, he complained with a French accent. “It wouldn’t go in a straight line.” Schlesser had been traveling at roughly 160 mph when he lost control. He was in need of a brandy and a chair.
For Ford, the test day was over. As sports cars painted in various national colors looped around the circuit, Lunn and Wyer walked by back roads and through wet fields to see what was left of their car. The crash site was in a woody area at a kink in the Mulsanne Straight called La Grande Courbe. It was a dangerous area prohibited to spectators, but the two men pushed through. Standing there, they eyed what was left of the GT40. It had taken them months to build and now here it was, in pieces scattered along 300 feet of the roadside. The car was totaled.
“It is incredible that he escaped with his life,” Wyer said.
The next day, Salvadori crashed the only other GT40 in existence. He was not injured, but the car was. A Ford rep called back to Dearborn and the phone rang in Don Frey’s office. “We wrecked both of them,” the rep told Frey. “I’m up to my hips in shattered cars.”
When the weekend ended, the team gathered the broken machinery and headed back to England. Long hours and sleepless nights awaited. Le Mans was two months away, and the test weekend had raised more questions than it had answered. The New York Times on Monday morning: “In trials that ended yesterday, a Ferrari car driven by John Surtees was clocked at 194 miles per hour down the three-mile Mulsanne Straight. Nothing has ever traveled here that fast before. And two Ford prototypes crashed. These Fords were new, unbelievably sleek and expensive . . . People who know money think Ford can build a winner. People who know car racing are not so sure.”
Lucky for Lunn and Wyer, Henry II was otherwise occupied. That same weekend, he and Iacocca flew to New York to unveil a new model at the World’s Fair. It was the Mustang. If the Ford Le Mans car was a marketing tool, this was its raison d’etre.
Henry II and Iacocca chose the opening weekend of the World’s Fair to lure maximum exposure. The company’s exhibit—officially called “The Wonder Rotunda,” largely designed by Walt Disney—sprawled over seven acres next to the brand-new Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets.
Iacocca took to the stage clad in an Italian-cut gray suit. He stood next to his car, the first model he could call his own.
“We appreciate your coming here to share this moment with us, one of the most important occasions in Ford division history,” he told a bustling crowd. “Incidentally, this is Ford’s first international press introduction. While we meet here, the Mustang is being introduced in 11 European capitals to some 2,000 reporters, editors, and photographers.”
Iacocca was spending more than $10 million on a tsunami of media in an attempt to instantly embed the Mustang in the public consciousness. The following Thursday, the company had half-hour programs running in prime time simultaneously on all three major television networks—a first in the annals of broadcasting. Iacocca’s face graced the cover of both Time and Newsweek. He tricked both weeklies into thinking they had exclusives, and both made him the cover story, calling him the man behind “a new breed out of Detroit.” He’d scored the publicity coup of the decade. Suddenly everyone knew how to pronounce the name “Iacocca.” (Time: “Rhymes with try-a-coke-ah.” Newsweek: “Pronounced eye-uh-coke-uh.”)
The Mustang was a winner—there was no question. It captured a moment in time, the year 1964. American attitude coupled with European style, horsepower as a metaphor for youth and modernity. It was all here in this one automobile. Sticker: $2,368 plus tax. For an extra $437.80, buyers got a 260-cubic-inch V8 engine, a whole lot of muscle. Simulated knockoff European-style racing hubcaps: $18.20. Racing package with stabilizer bar and stiffer struts: $38.60. Time waxed thick about the new Ford: “With its long hood and short rear deck, its Ferrari flare and openmouthed air scoop, the Mustang resembles the European racing cars that American sports-car buffs find so appealing.”
The media blitz shocked Henry II. He was stunned by Iacocca’s shameless self-promotion. Those Time and Newsweek stories barely mentioned Henry Ford II. Publicly, Henry II could only praise his employee. Privately, he seethed with discontent. Iacocca’s delight in the pages of Time was both portentous and naïve: “I see this as the start of a new golden age for Ford that will make the peaks of the past look like anthills.”
Days later, on the eve of Memorial Day, Iacocca had dinner with a racing driver named Eddie Sachs in Indianapolis. It was the night before the Indianapolis 500, and Sachs was going to be driving a Ford-engined car in the race. The driver and Iacocca were from the same town—Allentown, Pennsylvania—and they’d gotten to know each other. At thirty-seven, Sachs was Indy’s favorite underdog. He’d started out as a dishwasher in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway cafeteria, and he was obsessed with winning the Indy 500. He’d been hospitalized thirteen times over his career. The left side of his face had been reconstructed by plastic surgeons. Iacocca would always remember how calm Sachs was at dinner that night. He seemed perfectly at ease.
The next day, Iacocca took his seat in the “Penthouse Paddock” at the track along with an entourage of Ford executives. He watched the Purdue University marching band play “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Track owner Tony Hulman made his famous announcement over the loudspeakers:
“Gentlemen, start your engines!”
Iacocca’s pulse quickened when he saw the pace car lead the thirty-three racers around the track in front of 250,000 spectators. The pace car was a Ford Mustang convertible, with Henry II’s younger brother Benson at the wheel.
When the Mustang pulled into the pit lane and the green flag waved, Iacocca felt the explosion of the engines like a kick in the sternum. He watched the cars loop around the track into lap two. On turn four, an Indy rookie named Dave “Mr. Sideways” MacDonald lost control of a Ford-engined car and smacked its nose hard into the retaining wall. The car bounced back into the middle of the track. It happened so fast and early in the race, the sound of the screeching tires took the crowd by surprise. Coming around turn four at full speed came Eddie Sachs. He had nowhere to go. Sachs steered his mac
hine, loaded with a full tank, broadside into MacDonald at 150 mph. A deafening blast released a burst of flames and a black mushroom cloud. Exclamations poured from the crowd.
“Jesus Christ! Lookit that smoke!”
“It looks like an atomic bomb!”
All over the country, closed-circuit television screens went blank. In the Penthouse Paddock, Ford executives gazed down at the smoldering wreck. Two cars with “Powered by FORD” painted on them had turned into blazing coffins in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators. Iacocca’s face went slack. The flames burned holes into his dark brown eyes.
11
Le Mans, 1964
I am hypnotized by the atmosphere: the trees, the immense stands, the undulating roads with such holy monsters as Tertre Rouge, Maison Blanche, and the Hunaudières straights, the legendary Arnage and Mulsanne corners, where many dreams have foundered and others have brightened. I stand there for a half hour looking around and I relive the noise of the people, the roar of the crowds, the exhaust notes of the cars, the frenzy of refueling, the lights at night, the livid light of dawn, the hot sun that worsens fatigue and mists the mind. Ah, the stress of Le Mans!
—Enzo Ferrari’s lieutenant FRANCO GOZZI
NO ONE BELIEVED the Americans stood a chance. It would be a miracle if they beat the Ferraris in their debut at Le Mans. In fact, it would seem a miracle if they could keep their racing cars on the road. But then, in the spring of 1964, people had grown used to the unexpected, to heroic events and shocking headlines. In the previous twelve months, John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, the U.S. Congress had passed the first Civil Rights bill, and the Russians had launched the first woman into space. A twenty-two-year-old Louisville heavyweight named Cassius Clay had knocked out Sonny Liston in Miami Beach. Martin Luther King had marched on Washington and had delivered a speech that changed everything. “I have a dream,” King chanted, and so many other Americans had one, too.
When the Ford team checked into the Hotel de France in La Chartre-sur-le-Loir, a twenty-mile drive from the Le Mans circuit, chaos was already waiting for them. The Hotel de France was John Wyer’s spot. It had served as the Aston Martin Le Mans clubhouse through the 1950s. In 1950, Wyer housed the entire Aston team for nine days at the hotel and the bill came to 462 pounds sterling. In 1964, he couldn’t buy the Ford team lunch for that amount.
An army was arriving from Dearborn. Always, the week leading up to the 24-hour race was a frenzy of activity, but this was absurd. Carburetor specialists, tire and engine men. Wyer was in charge, but he’d never seen many of these faces. There weren’t enough rooms to go around. The place was crawling with reporters. A transporter carried three prototypes to a guarded paddock beside the hotel, where mechanics began all-night sessions taking the cars apart, inspecting every piece, and rebuilding them. The team had made significant modifications since the disastrous test weekend two months before, most notably a rear spoiler. The three-inch piece of metal jutting off the car’s tail created down force on the rear end. The spoiler “had the effect of putting feathers on an arrow,” as Lunn put it.
Wednesday through Friday were practice and qualifying days, and the race started at 4:00 P.M. on Saturday. It all had to go like clockwork, down to the customs papers to get the Fords into the country. The cars had to withstand a rigorous inspection; the French officials were legendary for their fastidious attention to an endless list of seemingly random regulations.
Wyer ran the show like a general. He had a stomach ulcer and was perpetually in a bad mood. He set up a schedule and the army had to live by it. When one member of the public relations team went in search of lunch at the hotel at 1:00 P.M., he was told, “Mr. Wyer doesn’t have lunch until 4:00 P.M. No one can have lunch until 4:00 P.M.” Wyer posted timetables for mechanics—which men would attend track sessions, which would work the overnight shift. When one team of mechanics finished their shift, the next would report for duty having slept, showered, and shaved.
The Dearborn suits were on edge before they arrived at Le Mans. There was hell to pay for the deaths of Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald at Indy three weeks earlier. A full investigation was underway. Ford’s PR chief made a statement: “We are all shocked and saddened by this tragedy. But I don’t think it should be a factor in making us pull out of racing. It’s dreadful that it happened. But this is built into racing.”
On the morning of the first Le Mans practice session, the pit lane filled with red Alfa Romeo Giulia TZs, silver Porsche 904s, green Triumph Spitfires and Jaguar E-Types. John Surtees was spotted, as was Phil Hill. Carroll Shelby arrived with a pair of Cobra Daytona coupes, painted guardsman blue with white stripes. There was no way to measure the man hours, ingenuity, loving care, and soul that had gone into these cars. Shelby was a fan favorite in France. When he walked out onto the pavement and looked up at the empty grandstands towering high, it all came back to him: the magic of this place. He was a champion here; no one could ever take that from him. Still, it must have felt like a different lifetime. He was a constructor now, armed with Ford money. If his Cobras could win the GT class—something no American car had ever accomplished—his little automobile company would be assured survival.
“Outside of the United States,” he told a Sports Illustrated reporter, “the Le Mans race has more prestige than all the other races put together. Le Mans receives throughout the world probably five times as much publicity as Indianapolis. Any automobile manufacturer who wants to make a name for himself in racing has to do well at Le Mans.”
The first engine sounded and soon revs were coming from all directions. The air stank of exhaust and hot pavement. One by one, cars motored onto the circuit. Stopwatches clicked off vital seconds. The press box grew loud with the sound of thumping typewriters. Facing the three Fords and two Cobras, Ferrari had entered four cars and a number of privateers were racing their own Ferraris, also prepared at the factory by Ferrari’s men, bringing the total to eight entries branded with the Prancing Horse.
From the first day of practice it became apparent that the race would move at historic speeds. One after another, Ferraris cut deeper into the circuit, shattering the Le Mans lap record: 3:47.2. Then 3:47. By the end of qualifying, the crowds that had begun to amass were left with a cliffhanger. Surtees set the best time: 3:42. His speed was dumbfounding. He’d knocked more than ten seconds off his own lap record from the year before. But a Ford qualified next, in the hands of Californian Richie Ginther. The Mexican Pedro Rodriguez qualified third and Phil Hill was fourth. Over the 8.36-mile course, less than four seconds separated the top four qualifiers.
On the eve of the race, Surtees stood in the Ferrari garage taping an on-camera interview with Stirling Moss for ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Until three years earlier, Moss had been considered the greatest racing driver in the world. Some said he was the best who’d ever lived. One high-speed injury later and here he was, with a microphone in his hand rather than a steering wheel. Interviews were not Surtees’s forte. The camera made him more nervous than a dice on the Mulsanne Straight. Moss asked him about the American threat. How important was it to Enzo Ferrari to beat the Fords?
“To a firm like Ferrari,” Surtees said, “which produces a specialized product and sells most of its cars in America, it’s very important.”
“Ferrari has won this race four times in a row,” Moss said, “and if he wins this race it’ll be five times, which has never been done. You’re entering four cars?”
“Yes.”
“How many men did you bring?”
“Our team is comprised of about twelve or thirteen mechanics, one engineer, and one team manager.”
Moss looked around the garage. There were seven cars. “What are the extra cars for?”
“In case anything unusual happens,” Surtees said. “For instance, the other night we were out and we hit a fox in the middle of the road at about 140 mph. It could have damaged the car rather badly.”
“Well I imagine it damaged the fox rath
er badly,” Moss laughed.
A smile crept out of the side of Surtees’s face.
Behind him, the cars were lined up in a row on the cement floor. Mechanics in beige jumpsuits took a break from wiping them down so they could leer at ABC’s script girl holding cue cards near the camera. A handful of men in suits wandered about, everyone with hands in pockets, resisting the urge to get fingerprints on the red metal. An air of complete confidence permeated the garage, as if the Americans posed no threat whatsoever.
“After all,” joked Luigi Chinetti, “the best American sports car is the Jeep, no?”
When Surtees wrapped his interview, he started to think about sleep. With Ferrari, there were no dramatic meetings, no strategies to coordinate. Out on the track it was every man for himself. Surtees was teamed with Lorenzo Bandini, Ferrari’s number-two driver. Together they were the odds-on favorites.
At the Hotel de France, Wyer assembled the Ford racers for a meeting. Six drivers, three teams of two. Wyer’s philosophy was the opposite of Enzo Ferrari’s. He believed in a team approach. Each driver and car was a cog in his victory machine. He wanted everything done precisely according to his orders.
“We want to finish the race,” Wyer said. “We aim to keep our cars running. We all must remember, this is an endurance race, not a sprint race.” Phil Hill and Bruce McLaren, Ford’s two superstars, comprised the number-one team. Wyer’s master plan had them winning. They would keep pace with the front-runners. “Stay close at court,” Wyer ordered. “Speed must be as high as possible while conserving brakes and gearbox. You must stay in a position to strike if attrition takes its toll on the leaders, which it always does.” Wyer advised the junior members of the team—Briton Richard Attwood and Frenchman Jo Schlesser—to stay back with the pack and go easy on the car. Their job was simply to finish the race.
