Henry Ford II thought he had a deal. Nine months of negotiation were over, and on July 4, 1963, he was planning to be in Maranello signing a $10 million contract with Enzo Ferrari that would give Ford Motor Co. half the Italian sports car manufacturer. As Time reported in its May 24 issue of that year: “To mark the partnership, the two companies have already started design work on a new, prestigious ‘Ferrari-Ford,’ which will have a powerful twelve cylinder engine in a Ford sports chassis.”
The “Ferrari-Ford” was never built. Enzo Ferrari pulled the pin on the deal at the last minute. We all know what happened next: An enraged Henry authorized the development of the Ford GT40, with the express goal of humiliating Enzo’s blood-red sports racers in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But what if Enzo hadn’t backed out of the deal? All sorts of alternate realities could have emerged. Here are just three:
Bernie Ecclestone would not be running Formula 1. Enzo’s prime motivation for the Ford deal was to fund his racing operations; Il Commendatore viewed his road car business almost as an afterthought. With a vested interest in the Ferrari F1 team, Ford would have had no incentive to develop the 3.0-liter Cosworth DFV V-8, one of the most successful racing engines of all time.
The Cosworth DFV allowed privateer outfits like Lotus, McLaren, Williams, Tyrrell, and Brabham to compete successfully against factory teams like Ferrari and Alfa Romeo. The privateer team owners formed the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) to represent their interests, and Ecclestone, then the owner of Brabham, became its chief executive in 1978. The rest, as they say, is history.
There would be Prancing Horse badges on a Mustang. Ford has had a rare talent for surfing the automotive zeitgeist: Model T, Model A, ’49 Ford, Mustang, Taurus, F-150, and Explorer. But it’s useless at managing brands. Exhibit A: Jaguar. So it’s fascinating to imagine how Ford would have managed Ferrari.
Maranello would have been left pretty much alone at first because the folks in Dearborn would have found everything—the language, the work practices, the food—so alien. But eventually the bean counters and the marketing mavens would have started poking around. There’d have been Taurus switchgear in the Testarossa and talk of a small Ferrari. And then one day someone in a meeting room in the Glass House would have had a brainstorm: “Why don’t we do a Ferrari-edition Mustang? It’s just like Ghia, only sporty. …”
Maranello would have been left pretty much alone … at first.
Ferrari today would be more like Porsche.
One of the things Ford did right at Jaguar was improve the company’s manufacturing capability. The first Ford-appointed Jaguar boss, a hard-bitten manufacturing expert called Bill Hayden, once famously compared Jaguar’s production line to a Russian tractor factory. And with some justification: At the time a Jaguar XJ had at least 10 times the defects of a Taurus.
Ferrari was almost a cottage industry back in 1963, and Ford would have moved to improve its manufacturing operations, as Ferrari’s output would have seemed too tiny and too much a waste of potential revenue. That would have eventually meant cheaper, smaller Ferraris, and maybe even a Ferrari SUV. Don’t laugh. Back in 1963 no one at Porsche figured they’d be building one, either.
The curious alchemy of people, politics, and process at the heart of the auto industry means there are hundreds of key turning points, crucial decisions that could have gone another way. What if GM had spent a few extra bucks on the Corvair’s suspension; if minivan creator Hal Sperlich had stayed at Ford; if BMW could have afforded to develop a front drive car in the 1980s? The alternate auto industry histories that result are endlessly intriguing.
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