Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans Paperback – Illustrated, June 17, 2010

You would think I had learned by now. Even “docudramas” based on actual history often only have the names of characters in common with that history. I was interested in this book after seeing the movie. What I quickly understood is that, at best, the movie was loosely related to the events and people documented in this book. Unlike the movie, this book reveals that were very different and more complex than the movie, as were the events themselves.If there was a “villain”, it was NOT Bebe as he was portrayed in the movie. The best fit for villain would be Enzo Ferrari, if there was one at all.So watch the movie for the car scenes. Read this book to understand something closer to reality of what the people were living and something closer to their real character.

Well written book to be appreciated by anyone interested in the subject.

This book is about the automotive competition between the large, sprawling, and bureaucratic Ford Motor Company and Ferrari of Italy to win the annual 24 hour long car race in Le Mans, France during the 1960s. There is much rich material in this story which gets underway in the early 1960s with Ford losing market share to General Motors and its leader, Henry Ford II, the grandson of the founder of the company, Henry Ford, deciding to withdraw from a 1957 agreement among auto manufacturers to refrain from linking their products to racing via advertising. Ford attempts to buy Ferrari, then the established leader in car racing worldwide and the repeat winner of Le Mans for many years, but the leader of the sports car maker, Enzo Ferrari, pulls out of the deal at the last minute. This leads Ford to spend millions of dollars and hire tons of talented racing drivers and engineers to develop an automobile that can win at Le Mans.Author A.J. Baime has a lot of interesting events and characters to deal with. On the one hand there is Enzo Ferrari, a European who is brilliant at building fast cars and holds a philosophy of cars that attributes human qualities to them - they are beings, their engines are souls. On the other hand there is Henry Ford II, a child of privilege who heads a massive corporation with his name on the building. It has factories, committees, and limitless testing facilities and resources. Ford was seduced by an attitude toward the automobile that is European but he brought an American fascination with technology to the art of racing.Baime is a journalist and the book reads like a long magazine article. There are many avenues where he could have gone deeper into some of the events and characters. I wish he had explored more the origins of the Ford Motor Company, especially where Henry Ford became obsessed with racing early in his first two failed companies, and the ways in which this influenced the DNA of Ford. I would have liked to learn more about Enzo Ferrari’s background and his company. Ferrari seems to have used racing as a kind of advertisement for his products but you won’t get any sales figures or financial information in this book, it doesn’t get into that much detail, sadly.That said, Baime has talked to many of the people involved in this story, at least those that are alive (a lot of race car drivers’ deaths are recounted in this book) and his research seems to cover a lot of contemporary newspaper accounts of the races and memoirs of the racers. Even if it is a somewhat shallow account, it does have a very interesting story to tell and Baime covers it from both the Ford and the Ferrari side pretty extensively. Car racing is an exciting sport to many and this episode in its long history has relevance beyond the racetrack as it involves business history, automotive technology, and the history of the automobile.

Go Like Hell isn't quite what I was expecting, but it is certainly worth owning if you're any kind of gearhead.Pros:-Does a great job telling the overall story surrounding Ford's winning years at LeMans, particularly 1965 and the big win in '66. The writer is advertised on the jacket as being associated with Playboy, and that's the sort of writing you should expect.-Lost of human interest stories. The book focuses mainly on the people involved, and their businesses, rather than getting overly deep into mechanical aspects. You'll learn a lot about the people involved, from Ford executives, to drivers, to Mr. Ferrari himself.-Lots of very well-sourced quotes and factoids from a massive list of interviews. The book contains a bibliography and index which sum to a larger size than most chapters in the book. The level of research is really quite astonishing, and that's lovely to see for such an important historical work.Cons:-Lack of mechanical detail. Considering the Ford GT40mk.II will be considered by any gearhead to be the "real" hero of this story, you'd expect quite a bit more detail into its interior workings and development. While you do get a good general overview of the parts involved- particularly the massive engine- this isn't near the technical manual I would have liked it to be. A good example is that the book goes into the Ford "J-Car" program, which implemented a variety of experimental mechanical designs- none of which are even mentioned when discussing the car. I'll avoid spoilers, but anyone familiar with the story will know there are critical reasons why the new parts on the J-Car must be mentioned in any discussion of its history.-Feels a bit "broad" for a car book. Related to the point about the mechanical detail, the overall tone of the book seems to focus mostly on the people and the broad forces involved. Again, this is perfectly in line for a writer of Playboy, or perhaps think Salon. There's sufficient detail to get your car passion going, but you're probably going to want to get on Wikipedia for some of the finer details to really quench your thirst.Any true fan is going to wish this book came with a Popular Mechanics style cutaway blueprint of the Mk.II, and the fact that it doesn't have that level of mechanical detail is my only gripe. The human interest stories are top-notch. You'll climb inside the heads of Ferrari, Ford II, Iacocca, Shelby, and a host of drivers- and there's a long list of sources for further reading. Definitely pick this one up.