Desirable Cars
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Desirable Fords

Ford tried to buy Ferrari outright in 1963. Enzo walked away from the table at the last minute — so Henry Ford II built a car specifically to humiliate him at Le Mans instead.

Two Very Different Kinds of Legend

One reshaped an entire industry category. The other settled a very personal score on the track. Negotiations to acquire Ferrari collapsed in May 1963 after weeks of talks, when Enzo Ferrari discovered Ford's terms would have stripped him of control over his own racing programme and walked out mid-meeting. Henry Ford II reportedly handed his executives cards reading "You better win — HF" as the resulting GT40 programme took shape, and the response was total: a 1-2-3 finish at Le Mans in 1966, ending Ferrari's run of six consecutive victories at the race, and three more wins in a row after that.

Elsewhere in Ford's history, the Mustang did something arguably even more consequential — inventing an entirely new market segment overnight and selling in numbers no rival came close to matching in its first year. Below are the models we've covered so far.