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Movie Theater Ford VS Ferrari

I've been wanting to see this, it's one of my favorite motorsport history topics of all time.

The new top tier LS engines are no fucking joke, older ones run the spectrum imo. Frequently the best bet for a kit motor though, Chevy has the most product support for swaps. Personally, I'm a purist who thinks cars should remain more or less original component wise. Speed is cheap once you know what you're doing, but character isn't something you can just bolt on or throw money at and tune.
 
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I'm actually not a huge fan of American automotive outside of a few gems, so debating Chevy vs Ford engines is super uninteresting to me. You can probably tell I've already agreed with you, anyway— at least in the case of a GT40 kit car.
 
Going next Wednesday with 8 other car guys. We have dinner twice a month when we aren't cruisin. So it's dinner and a movie.

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The Ford GT40 is the car that first got me into racing back when I was a wee lad in the late 60s. My uncle was a Ford dealer so he had all kinds of promo material featuring the car. I started following sports car racing right then and there, and have followed it ever since. Even ended up driving some formula and sports car races myself for a time. I am anxiously awaiting this movie. It will be a bit of recapturing my youth, as I remember when this was happening "real time". Hope it's as good as I'm thinking it will be!
 
My wife and I saw it last night. We enjoyed it. I don't think Matt Damon was the right choice to play Shelby. Not sure who the right choice would have been, but it wasn't Matt. I thought Christian Bale did a credible job of Ken Miles. Leo Bebe and HF II were a bit cartoonish, but not terrible.

I was a little distracted by the editing. I thought they had way too many cut-ins of shifting and pedal work, usually at what seemed like the wrong place on the track. I doubt most people noticed that, but I sure did. Loved seeing and hearing the cars though. The Ford GT is just such a timeless design. I never tire of looking at them. The Cobras and other cars were fun too.

All in all, a good movie, if not great. Well worth seeing, and I'll probably buy the DVD too. It caused me to dig out my GT40 books this morning, and I am going to re-read "Go Like Hell", which is a great book that covers these events in pretty good detail.
 
I will wait to watch at home, wife and I hate going to movies these days dealing with all that goes on.

Very interesting story that should be told. My time was street racing. GT 40 is my #3 car. Tbolt is and will always be #1.
 
Or built 3.5 Ecoboost twin turbo. My buddy is building a 2 seat off-road buggy with one. 500hp on E85. It just sounds angry it's awesome.
EcoBoost is un-American. Coyote is where it is at


I'm not a fan of the EcoBoost. Hopped up V6 engines do absolutely nothing for me.
100% agree. When I am looking at F150’s I don’t even look at the EcoBoost, only the 5.0L V8. I think they completely missed the mark on the f150 diesel.
 
We had 10 not 8 car guys that met for dinner and then went to see the movie Ford vs Ferrari. We are all good friends but not peter puffers as buttpirate, I mean 308pirate, and Huskydriver suggested.
We all agreed that we were fortunate to have watched the story unfold in real time as young men going through the muscle car era. Thanks in great part to Ken Miles, Carroll Shelby, Lee Iacocca and Henry Ford II as they helped push it to all it was and still is today.
 
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Just got back from seeing it... wow does it totally rock!

I hate Matt Damon... but damn he was one fine actor playing Shelby. And Christian Bale was amazing.

There were some 'Hollywoodism's' in it. But the cars, (especially the 'big' scenes at the racetracks were awesome. The V8 and V12 soundtrack was, well, music!

And when it ended... as I went to get up, I found myself reflexively reaching to unbuckle my seatbelt! How's that for 'being there!'

Not gone to many movies lately. This one was utterly worth it!

Cheers,

Sirhr
 
I tried seeing it the other night and it was sold out! It was last minute but to be honest I thought there would be plenty of empty seats. Most people have shitty taste in movies and this one looked really good so figured theatre would be empty.

I’m embarrassed to share what movie I did see I’m afraid to loose my man card.
Hopefully movie is still playing in the next couple weeks because next day off I’m going hunting.
 
It was pretty damn good - Matt Damon was far better than expected as Carroll Shelby, and Christian Bale was excellent as expected. There was some of the usual Hollywood over-dramatization as is expected, and the cinematography of the on-track scenes didn't compare well to "Rush" IMO. But if it was necessary to trade off accuracy for excitement in order to get such a film released to a wide audience, so be it. I mean, a 2-1/2 hour racing biopic got made, released to great reviews, and hit it big at the box office. That's a win for car guys and fans of original movies.

A side note - I don't recall seeing AJ Baime's "Go Like Hell" credited anywhere. Is this an oversight on my part, or is Hollywood not throwing him any credit? I get that this is historical fiction and one can claim that the broad strokes of the plot are based upon widely-distributed historical accounts, but many of the details in the movie seem to come straight from that book.

I saw the film with three of my LeMons teammates. Now, running a $500 POS around a track is in no way comparable to the feats we were watching on the big screen (other than constant concerns about brake fade and wear), but I'm also pretty confident that we were the only ones in the theater that night who had actually competed in - and finished! - a 24-hour endurance race. Made the whole experience just a bit more enjoyable, I think.
 
I watched this movie over the Thanksgiving break with my sister; hadn't seen the trailer, so initially was thinking it was a cop movie. I enjoyed the show -- I'm a cheap bastard, so at a 152 minutes long on a Friday afternoon matinee, I felt like I got my money's worth. I'm not a car-guy, but after the movie I was going to do a little more online research of Ken Miles (seemed like an interesting character), but got sidetracked by the Motivational Picture thread and that was the end of that.
 
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Yet to see it, but I will.

Back in the 60's and 70's, our bunch of Scouts got back from The 'Nam, and we became motor heads, with a side dish of foreign sports cars. Most of us were newly married, and one couple lived in Litchfield CT.

So weekend treks to Lime Rock for races was a regular on our programs. The other thing was long weekend treks to camp out in Shenandoah.

What I'm saying is that this movie is very probably made with folks like myself in mind.

Greg
 
A side note - I don't recall seeing AJ Baime's "Go Like Hell" credited anywhere. Is this an oversight on my part, or is Hollywood not throwing him any credit? I get that this is historical fiction and one can claim that the broad strokes of the plot are based upon widely-distributed historical accounts, but many of the details in the movie seem to come straight from that book.

I started to recommend "Go Like Hell" by AJ Baime as a good non-fiction read, but I didn't realize there were so many guys here that were into the 60s muscle car era. Another good book is "The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit" by Michael Cannell. It has an excellent treatment of Phil Hill's career and some good insight on Enzo Ferrari as well as the Ferrari racing organization and US imports in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
 
My Lady and I both watched this last night, and we both REALLY enjoyed this movie. Far moreso that either of us thought we would. And yes, My Lady is/has been a NASCAR freak for many many years, so she truly did enjoy this.

Some years ago, we also really liked "One" (I think that was the name) about Formula 1 racing and its history/development.
 
Great film. It would be interesting to see what one of those cars could do today with the modern engine of the same displacement and carbon brakes.

I miss my old mustang... like a lot of cars that had decent power and no: anti lock brakes, traction control, super computer, air bags.... that car would allow you to try to kill yourself.

I recall reading about how many Cobras crashed on the freeway. Punch it at 70-80 and the tires would spin and many lost control.
 
Went to see it Saturday with my wife and adult son. When this first came out, I wanted to see it, but time got away from us. I’m glad we went to see it before it left the big screen. All of us enjoyed the movie. Lots of history there. I grew up in the era right after this movie, and this is the stuff that laid the foundation down for the hot rods and heavy muscle of the 60’s and 70’s. While I’m a Chevy guy, and also like Mopar, I still have a lot of respect for the Ford stuff. If you like cars, at all, no matter if it’s road, drag, muscle, it doesn’t matter, take your date to see it while it’s still on the big screen.
 
Fantastic movie.
Honestly one of the best new movies I have seen in a while. I agree on Damon being an odd choice for Shelby. He is a great actor even if he is a bit of a tool in real life. I would have figured Matthew McConnauhey (too lazy to look up the correct spelling of his last name) would have been a decent choice. At least he wouldn’t have had to fake the Texas accent.

Not really a spoiler, but keep scrolling if you don’t know the history:
The ending sure tugged on my heart strings. Miles got screwed and never got a chance to make it right
 
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