FOR the all-powerful US motor industry in the glory days of the 1960s, its failure to beat the Europeans on the race track was a national humiliation that needed to be righted.
So Henry Ford II decided he would just buy Italy’s all- conquering Ferrari, so that the American car magnate could become a glamorous winner.
But when Enzo Ferrari refused his generous offer, he turned instead to a bunch of Brits to bring him glory at the world-famous 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in France.
It took a fearless driver from Birmingham, a mechanic from Wiltshire and the creator of the Ford Anglia to beat Ferrari’s prancing horse to the chequered flag.
Today a Hollywood film, Le Mans ’66, is out in cinemas and tells the story of the fierce battle for dominance, the sheen of victory — and a reputation for extraordinary reliability.
Christian Bale plays tea-loving driver Ken Miles, born in the Birmingham suburb of Sutton Coldfield, and Matt Damon is his smooth-talking Stetson-wearing racing team boss Carroll Shelby.
While womanising Texan Shelby remains a legend in the US for creating winning racing teams, hero Ken is barely known in Britain.
Yet he was so talented that in 1966 he would have won three endurance races if Henry Ford hadn’t ordered him to slow down so that all three Ford cars crossed the Le Mans finishing line at the same time — for a publicity stunt.
Just two months later Ken died in a ball of flames when suspected mechanical failure led to a crash during testing.
Christian says: “The reason the story is so legendary is because these misfits challenged God and won, didn’t they? God was Ferrari. He was a monster, a Goliath of reputation and style, legendary in the racing community. And this little band of misfits, with Ford’s backing but in spite of Ford’s interference — they did it.”
Born in 1918, Ken was a World War Two tank commander, then after the war he raced various cars before moving to California in 1952 to race MG-based cars that he designed and built himself.
He set up his own garage in Hollywood, where he would fix cars imported from Britain that American mechanics did not understand.
In 1961 Charlie Agapiou, who was born in Salisbury, Wilts, and grew up in North London, saw Ken’s advert asking for an “English mechanic” and became his pit crew chief.
Shortly afterwards, Ken was hired by Shelby as the test driver for his Cobra muscle car racing team.
Among the Americans, Ken earned the nicknames Teddy Teabag and Sidebite. Today Charlie, now 77, still services Rolls-Royces and Bentleys in California, and he recalls: “At the circuit he would have a kettle on the pit wall, tea going all the time.
“Sometimes it would be the same teabag all day and by the end it would just be hot water. He once had a small stroke, meaning the left side of his mouth wasn’t quite right, so we used to call him Sidebite.”
In the early 1960s Ferrari was king of the Le Mans race, winning six years in a row. Shelby had been tasked with helping Henry Ford to win a bitter feud with Enzo Ferrari.
When Ford learned that the Italian firm was in debt, he offered to buy it. Enzo accepted but then changed his mind at the last moment, sending the American into a fury. Ford, with a £10million-a-year budget, told his executives: “Build me a car that will crush Ferrari at Le Mans.”
Shelby was the charismatic deal- maker behind the team. Charlie says: “He never used to poke around in what we were doing too much.
“He was a promoter, the one who got the money and the birds. A lot of the time he was just one of the lads.”
Topping the podium at Le Mans did not just demonstrate speed — it also showed reliability, because cars had to last for 24 hours being pushed to their absolute mechanical limit.
Ford wanted his all-American brand to have that reputation, knowing it would lead to more sales in car showrooms.
But Shelby chose to adapt two British motors for the track, first using a roadster made by Surrey firm AC Cars for his Cobra and then the Slough-made Ford GT40.
The GT40 had been designed and developed by former RAF pilot Roy Lunn, whose previous projects included Aston Martin’s sporty DB2 and Ford UK’s little family Anglia car. At the time racing drivers would push their cars to the limits, not giving much thought to their safety.
Christian says: “They lived life in a very raw manner, I mean literally not knowing if they were going to get out of the car. And that made them incredibly alive.”
The Le Mans race has claimed the lives of 22 drivers, while in 1955 a horrific smash killed 83 spectators.
Charlie says: “They didn’t think about safety much back then. When Stirling Moss came over here in ’61 or ’62 he didn’t want to wear a seatbelt, he wanted to race in his jacket.”
During practice for the 1966 race US driver Walt Hansgen died when he skidded on the drenched Tarmac but even that did not stop Ken going out in a car with a few teething problems during the race itself. He had to race the first lap holding on to one door because it would not shut.
That year he had already won the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring races and was going for the hat-trick at Le Mans — unaware of Henry Ford’s planned publicity stunt of a three-way Ford finish. Ken was so determined to win, he ignored team orders to ease off in the final hours when he was ahead of two Ford team mates, including New Zealander Bruce McLaren.
During a pit stop he told Charlie they had “got f***ed” by a plan to let McLaren come first.
Charlie says: “He said they wanted him to finish second and for some reason they wanted the Bruce McLaren car to win. He said, ‘I’m not going to finish second.’” But by the time he made his next changeover with co-driver Denny Hulme, Ken had calmed down.
He accepted the publicity stunt plan, and Christian says: “It’s an incredible moment for Ken. He’s a purist and for him to consider taking your foot off the gas in the slightest is an absolute anathema. That’s not racing at all.”
The finish-line image went down in racing folklore. On receiving the chequered flag, Ken headed for the winner’s enclosure with the GT40 — only to be turned away. McLaren had started the race 20 metres behind him and because it was an endurance race he was ruled to be the winner.
Charlie says: “I was trying to get the car into the winner’s circle after and they were saying, ‘No, no, no.’ Ken had been lied to because they knew it couldn’t be a dead heat. I was furious, I was out of my mind.”
But Ken showed good grace in defeat, choosing to congratulate McLaren on his victory. Charlie believes Ford did not want the headlines to say “Ken Miles wins again” because they wanted the limelight for themselves rather than him.
Tragically, Ken was never to return to France. Two months later, as he drove a prototype Ford J car round the Riverside International Raceway in California at more than 200mph, it suddenly veered off the track. It piled over an embankment and burst into flames, killing the 47-year-old legend instantly.
Charlie says: “It was definitely a mechanical error. He’d done 100,000 miles on that circuit — he knew exactly where every bump and crack was.” As a result of Ken’s death, Ford improved safety in its race cars by adding a roll bar.
Paying tribute to his star driver, Shelby said at the time: “Ken was the greatest test driver in the world. He was our baseline, our guiding point.”
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Shelby went on to design many sports cars for Ford then Dodge before dying aged 89 in 2012. Witnessing the horror that day in 1966 was Ken’s 15-year-old son Peter, who is played in the film by Noah Jupe and is a central figure in the movie’s story.
Charlie says Peter, who also lives in the US, is thrilled that the film is giving his dad the status he deserves.
He concludes: “Ken has now been recognised as the great driver he was. Peter feels really happy about the film because it brought it all to life.”
Le Mans ’66 (12A) is in cinemas today.
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