"Speed King", or Chinese translation pays attention to "letter, da, ya", if translated directly according to the English name of this Oscar-winning film, "Ford V Ferrari", "Ford vs Ferrari", in addition to Sun Wukong vs XXX, such a sloppy name is not common.
Note that the name does not use Ford "VS" Ferrari, but the letter "V" used in the middle of the two car brands, Ford is in front, V is in the back, Ferrari is behind V, without looking, you know that the ending must be Ford wins Ferrari, such a blunt title is not common, because if there is "Ultraman vs Huluwa", I can't guess who will win in the end.
All of a sudden, from the name to the end, isn't it boring?! If it is a non-fan audience to see, I guess the pee point of this movie is probably not as fierce as the "Fast and Furious" series, if it is a car fan, or a racing fan?
Judging from the design of the plot, it is very much in line with the style of American films advocating individual heroism, and it is not a conventional method of "setting up a model in the collective". The story structure is compact, and the content reflected in the picture is closer to the real than the "Fast and Furious" series, after all, it is based on the real story.
Compared with the hit-and-kill series, there are not many racing movies, mainly in line with the real story, and there are not many well-made ones, such as "Rush", which tells the story of Nicky Lauda and James Hunt competing in F1, and "Flying Life" directed by Han Han last year. Compared with these two movies, "Speed King" is obviously better in terms of plot, picture, storyline and so on.
Of course, there are a few points in the movie, and there are some behind the stories, and I think it is necessary to share them with you.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > ★ Le Mans - the link between European and American manufacturers</h1>
In the 1950s and 1960s, and even before, U.S. and European automakers were very "harmonious", especially in the arena, Europeans played their own F1 and Le Mans, and Americans had a soft spot for NASCAR and Daytona. The former plays with manipulation, the latter pursues dynamics, and everyone's well water will not violate the river water.
In the 1960s, Enzo Ferrari, who was immersed in the racing business, was overly striving for excellence, and at that time, Ferrari's sports cars were first-class, and the cars were first-class. For example, the 39 250 GTOs built between 1962 and 1964 are still one of the most coveted collectors by top collectors.
On the track, Ferrari ended the legendary era of jaguar D-Type in 1958 and dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans for six consecutive years in 1960-1965, the king that no one could shake at the time. But why did the American car brand Ford, which is far away on the other side of the ocean, run to Europe to compete with Ferrari? The reason is also Enzo Ferrari.
Enzo Ferrari, who was too aggressive in racing cars, could no longer sustain his racing career by selling his own sports cars, and at this time, Ford Motor threw an olive branch to Modena in Italy to buy Ferrari. Time would have been good, after all, Enzo Ferrari could have received enough money to continue his racing career.
However, the two sides are stuck on one issue: Ferrari wants to continue to play racing, and Ford does not agree. In Ford's eyes, they believed that Ford was the absolute hegemon of the car manufacturers at that time, there was no need to waste money on the track, and Ferrari believed that the racing career was the lifeblood of the Prancing Horse brand, and the Prancing Horse that left the track had no soul, no different from a donkey. Coupled with the fact that Enzo himself did not look up to the Americans, the result was very smooth and the talks collapsed. This made Henry Ford II of Detroit very faceless, so he made a poisonous oath: at all costs, kill Ferrari at Le Mans!
< H1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > ★ the Ford GT40 that made Americans famous at Le Mans</h1>
From the birth of Le Mans to the present, throughout the past championships, basically by European car manufacturers, Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche, Audi, have established their own dynastic era, three consecutive championships is a common thing. The United States, on the other hand, is not very good at racing on tracks with consecutive curves.
How did the American performance car, which is accustomed to showing strong horsepower, win the Ferrari in Europe? This has to mention one of the protagonists of the film, Carol Shelby.
Shelby is a racing driver himself, but due to heart disease, his racing career is relatively short, and he retired at the age of 36. In 1960, after retiring from the army, he staged a good play of "empty glove white wolf", first writing a letter to the British AC Car Company (at that time the British Bristol Car Company no longer provided AC company with engines), saying that if you could give me a body, I could install a Ford engine on it, and then wrote to Ford, saying that if you could give me an engine, I could install it on the body of the AC.
This is probably a typical example of calling someone to eat a hot pot at home and preparing a pot yourself. The two car companies were so successfully fooled by Shelby that Shelby built the first Cobra car with a Ford 4.3-liter V8 engine and AC body, which shined at the 1962 New York Auto Show.
After Lee Iacocca's initiative to call for help, Shelby created the Ford GT40, which has strong power and excellent aerodynamics, and won the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans over Ferrari. Over the next three years, the GT40 was upgraded to the GT MK series and won consecutive championships with consecutive victories over Ferrari in 1967, 1968 and 1969. It was also the first and only time that an American automaker had won consecutive titles in le Mans history.
< H1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > ★ scandal in the history of racing – three cars rushing the line together</h1>
The glory was accompanied by a disgraceful scandal, the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the top three were decided to be won by Ford before the end of the race, as Ferrari cars were almost completely destroyed. So the leadership of Ford Motor Company had a whim, planning to let the leading Ken Myers slow down, wait for the two Ford cars behind, and then the three cars cross the finish line together. Such a picture will show Ford's unique glory moment on the field.
However, this is simply an intolerable ugly act for the driver who wins for life. Helplessly, under the premise of "corporate interests", Ken Myers had to compromise. As a result, due to the rule of determining the final ranking according to the distance traveled by the car, the championship was picked up by Bruce McLaren , who was supposed to be runner-up (behind Biken Miles from the starting position).
Due to the interests, there have been similar "give-up" events on the racing track, such as the 2002 F1 Austria station, Ferrari's Barrichello from the first place and led the whole field, in the last lap received the team's instructions to slow down, the result is less than 100 meters from the finish line, the teammate Michael Schumacher was spared, won the runner-up, in order to save the team points. In F1 Russia 2018, Mercedes-Benz Bottas also "gave way" to Hamilton in order to consolidate hamilton's leading position.
These "team instructions" are undoubtedly a great shame for drivers, and they are helpless to commercialize sports, and they always have to make some trade-offs. Take the Ford team in the movie, on the one hand, the driver fights for the championship seat for death, and on the other hand, the commercial car is sold, who is wrong? Is it unsportsmanlike to let the car go? This topic remains unanswered.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > ★ bruce who picked up the champion is the McLaren you know</h1>
Inken Miles waited for everyone to cross the line together, and Bruce McLaren, who accidentally picked up the Le Mans championship, can be described as a real luck. In fact, he was an F1 driver, and when he won the American Grand Prix in 1959, he was the youngest racer in F1 history at the time.
In 1963, Bruce McLaren founded Bruce Mclaren Motor Racing, a company that specializes in supercars. In 1966, after the McLaren F1 team made their debut at the Monaco Grand Prix, a pair of good things, Bruce and another driver, Chris Amon, "picked up" the 24 Hours of Le Mans from Ken Miles.
Unfortunately, in 1970, Bruce McLaren died at the age of 32 after a car accident while testing racing at goodwood circuit in England.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > ★ Lee Iacocca of Bole</h1>
Lee Iacocca, who was in charge of ford motor company sales at the time, proposed to show the brand's impact and technical content through the performance of the car, as he said in the film: "Is Ferrari Racing "because he built the most cars?" Not really, but because his car represents a victory, they always win Le Mans and people want to be part of that victory. ”
At the same time, Iacocca proposed that the young consumers at that time no longer liked the old and old car shape, and the product needed to be designed in a young way. So, ford introduced the Mustang in 1964, and then through Enzo Ferrari and Henry Ford II, Lee Iacocca approached Carol Shelby to advance Ford's racing business.
After the launch of the Mustang, sales reached 420,000 units in the first year, setting a record for the national automobile manufacturing industry, and immediately after generating a net profit of $1.1 billion for Ford Motor. Later, Lee Iacocca successfully led to the sales of many Ford models, and became president of the Ford Motor Company in 1970.
However, Henry Ford II expelled him in 1978. After leaving Ford, Lee Iacocca's sales talent continued to be fully utilized at Chrysler, and he successfully saved the company from the state he was on the verge of bankruptcy when he first joined, and it took 5 years for the company to pay off all its debts and regroup.
As a racing movie, "Speed King" tries to restore the facts, but after all, it is a movie, which needs some exaggerated techniques to show the tension of the storyline, such as the speed is still not reduced after heavy rain, and the brakes before bending are not downgraded...
Since the 1950s, it has been difficult to discern the difference between the GT and the prototype group in Le Mans, and the FIA said that only legal commercially available models can participate, so it is basically GT cars that compete, and the GT group that is in the lead is often the prototype sports car that has been lightweighted. By the 1960s, the FIA had improved the rules of the race, prototypes were built in extremely few quantities, and GT cars were built on production-produced sports cars. In other words, build either a few prototypes with small displacement engines, or build more than 25 large-displacement sports cars.
As for why the shift limit does not exceed 7000 rpm? Let's talk about it as a topic of discussion among straight men, in my opinion, 7000 or 8000, in this movie, is just a number. Anyway, it has taken this year's Oscars for "Best Editing" and "Best Sound Editing", which is worth a look.
The author of this article is Kick Car Gang Jia Yuntao