Similarly, Miles’ crew chief recently told CBS News that he never saw them get into any knockdown, drag-out, grocery-spilling fistfights. That has been the direction of my entire vocational life. Nevertheless, gearheads, automotive historians, and former business colleagues of Ford Senior Vice President Leo Beebe will find a lot to quibble about in this dramatization of the Ford Motor Company’s historic first win over its Italian rival at France’s 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, which takes its inspiration from A.J. In 1929, when he was 11 years old, he started riding a “350cc Trials Special Triumph bike.” Once, while riding the bike, he met with an accident and broke his nose and three teeth. Much of the travel and haggling was conducted by his subordinate, a metallurgical engineer named Don Frey, whose technical know-how genuinely won the eccentric carmaker’s respect for a time. Driven by Ken Miles and Denny Hulme, this is the car that would have won but for the Ford decision to stage a photofinish with three cars crossing the finish line simultaneously. His zodiac sign is Scorpio. Driving is a hobby, a relaxation for me, like golfing is to others. After the war, he raced Bugattis, Alfa Romeos, and Alvises with the Vintage Sports Car Club. Photos by Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox and Reuters/1978 Sid Avery. 2 Shelby American Ford Mk II driven by Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon, although both cars remained on the same lap. As Gozzi says in Baime’s book, it was “a tirade that I had never seen or heard before in my entire life and have not done so since.”. McLaren's #2 car crossed the finish line just ahead and was declared the winner. Miles fontos szerepet játszott a Cobra, majd a Daytona Coupe és később a Ford GT40 kifejlesztésében. LE MANS 24 HEURES MOTOS RESCHEDULED TO 12-13 JUNE 2021 READ MORE Shelby never locked Beebe in an office to get a private audience with Ford, according to Frank Comstock, a journalist and former student of Beebe’s. Charlie Agapiou gives the windscreen of GT40P/1015 a final polish just before the start of the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hour Race. Photos by Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox and Bettmann / Contributor. In reality, there was no conflict. Baime’s nonfiction book Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. He then turned to a Ford V8 Frazer-Nash. Ken Miles was key in Ford’s triumph at Le Mans in 1966, developing and racing the Ford GT40, as depicted in the film Le Mans ’66. To use another (but sadly not the last) racing metaphor, let’s take a look under the hood. 250,000 spectators showed up to watch the Ford and Ferrari showdown in 1966. However, the crash did not stop him, and he soon recovered from his i… At Sebring 12 Hours, Ken Miles and Bruce McLaren finished second, behind Jim Hall and Hap Sharp in a Chaparral 2A. Due to his great skill and talent, both as a driver and mechanical engineer, Miles was a key member of the Shelby/Cobra race team in the early 1960s. After almost a day of testing at Riverside International Raceway in the brutally hot Southern California desert summer weather, Miles approached the end of the track's 1-mile (1.6 km), downhill back straight at top speed (200-plus mph) when the car suddenly looped, flipped, crashed and caught fire. With British racer-engineer Ken Miles at the wheel, the test car lapped at an average of 201.5 mph, reaching 210 mph on the straights. The 1955 race set a new distance record. Miles was born on 1 November 1918 in The Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, a short distance from the city of Birmingham. 20 did have an accident that led to a pileup with a Porsche and a French Matra MS620. Miles, though, wasn’t happy. He was instructed to lap at between 3:37.0 and 3:38.0. Miles, too, was also more accommodating in real life than in the movie, despite a clear awareness that he’d been fucked. Kenneth Henry Miles (1 November 1918 – 17 August 1966) was a British sports car racing engineer and driver best known for his motorsport career in the US and with American teams on the international scene. “With $25,000, I can build two cars that’ll blow off the Corvettes.”. In 1952 Miles moved from England to the US, and settled in Los Angeles, California as a service manager for Gough Industries, the Southern California MG distributor. As the final laps were counted down on the afternoon of June 19, it appeared that the win would go to the number 1 GT40 Mk II, a Shelby American team car driven by Ken Miles and Denny Hulme. The J-car featured a breadvan-shaped rear section that experimented with Kammback aerodynamic theories, as well as an untested honeycomb panel design that was supposed to both lighten and stiffen the car, but the design remained unproved with high-speed prototype sports cars. He really did move to Hollywood and ingratiate himself with Southern California’s hot-rodding racing scene. The resulting car dominated the F Modified class of SCCA on the west coast in the 1957 and 1958 seasons with Miles driving. All rights reserved. Miles had a "reputation for courtesy on the track" and was sometimes called the "Stirling Moss of the West Coast". British-born Ken Miles was a gifted race car engineer and driver. Le Mans (Bugatti) - 210 lap times , 4.2 km / 2.6 miles Mireval - 72 lap times , 3.3 km / 2.0 miles Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours GP - 49 lap times , 4.4 km / 2.7 miles It is considered one of the most prestigious automobile races in the world and has been called the "Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency". [2] After a failed attempt to run away to the United States,[3] Miles left school at the age of 15 to work as an apprentice at Wolseley Motors,[2] who sent him to a technical school to broaden his knowledge of vehicle construction. Audi is next, with 13 victories. While the Ford had set the lap record, the race was an unmitigated disaster. Then we lost him in August.”. [4][5][6] In 1953, he won 14 straight victories in SCCA racing in an MG-based special of his own design and construction. With a few hours left in the race, Ford came to Carroll Shelby with an idea- Miles was a couple of laps ahead of Bruce McLaren, and Ford wanted to attempt to stage a tie. Many more vehicles, including the Ford and Ferrari entrants seen blowing gaskets and burning out their engines in the film, did not finish due to less harrowing equipment failures. Ford executives, under pressure after the second of two fatal accidents in the program in five months, also ordered a NASCAR-style steel tube rollover cage to be installed in future versions of the car.[13]. During the practice laps, the 427 set the lap record at 3:33, almost five seconds faster than the Ferraris! But, in keeping with the many acts of dramatic license already reviewed, there was less internal bickering within the Ford team about Beebe’s directive that Miles slow down long enough for the second- and third-place Fords to catch up for a three-way photo finish. Miles described himself this way:[8]. Ken Miles, The Unsung Hero Of Le Mans 1966, Gets A Dig In At Ford. [20] In a 2019 interview with Le Mans, Peter revealed that the last time he went to Le Mans was in 1965 with his father Ken, and he has not returned since. As he says in Go Like Hell, “I’ll forever be sorry that I agreed with Leo Beebe and Henry Ford to have the three cars come across at the same time. We’re going to race him,” was somewhat more decorous than what erupts from the mouth of Ford v. Ferrari’s Ford II upon hearing this news: “We are gonna bury that greasy wop.”. In 1986, Peter joined Precision Performance Inc. (PPI), starting as a fabricator and then a mechanic before becoming the crew chief. And would wistfully doodle logos experimenting with mergers of the Ford team to pileup... Process is one of the J-car were greatly modified to correct the rear-end lift generated at race speeds almost when... Not for the grand prize, but just to see what it is like Ferrari! Miatt kiestek laps in a tank unit that took part in the Normandy landings in 1944. 6... 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