It's true that an angry Henry Ford II sought revenge by directing his company's finances toward putting together a racing team and building a sports car that could beat Ferrari, specifically at the most prestigious car race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.įirst held in 1923, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which takes place in the town of Le Mans, France, sets itself apart because instead of being a fixed-distance sports car race that awards the win to the car with the minimum time, the 24 Hours of Le Mans gives the win to the car that covers the greatest distance in a span of exactly 24 hours. Fiat didn't buy a stake in Ferrari until early 1969, well after Ford's first Le Mans win.

Ferrari using Ford to leverage more money out of Fiat is fiction. Enzo Ferrari (also known as 'Il Commendatore') couldn't handle the idea that anyone else would control the decisions regarding his race team, so he bailed on the deal. At first, Enzo Ferrari agreed to the deal, but there was a clause in the contract which stated that Ford would control the racing budget (and in turn the decisions).

The Ford v Ferrari true story reveals that Ford's offer was $10 million. The negotiations are expedited for the sake of the movie. Ford sent a group of dealmakers to Modena, Italy to hash out a deal with Enzo Ferrari, which took months of meticulous negotiation. By 1963, Henry Ford II (the grandson and namesake of the company's founder) decided that the quickest way to get Ford on the racetrack would be to buy Ferrari. The only problem was that Ford didn't have a sports racing car in its fleet. The other part had to do with the fact that Ford needed a marketing boost in the face of slipping sales and stiff competition from GM, especially when it came to attracting younger buyers.

In the early 1960s, Henry Ford II's love for car racing was part of the reason that he decided that the Ford Motor Company would start competing.

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