An Italian Engine Builder Laughed at a Ford - 'Your Truck Engine Beat My Ferrari by 10.2 Seconds'

In June 2016, a French machinist who has volunteered as a track marshal at Le Mans every June since 1986, and his Italian wife, who spent 15 years building engines in Maranello, laughed at the new Ford GT. Lucien Barre said the year-old car would not see the sunrise. Paola Barre said it ran the engine out of a pickup truck, and she was right: about 70% of it was the same as Ford's road EcoBoost V6. That week Lucien spent most of a night turning a brass adapter on his lathe for Russ Dobbins, a Ford support mechanic from Dearborn: American threads are in inches, French ones in millimeters. Then Russ offered Paola a bet: a blue Ford sticker for her red toolbox, right next to the prancing horse. Through rain, darkness, a drive-through penalty and a Ferrari spin, the number 68 Ford GT traded the lead with the Ferrari 488. After 340 laps and the stewards' penalties, the gap was 10.2 seconds, exactly 50 years after Ford first beat Ferrari there, with Sébastien Bourdais, born in Le Mans, on his 11th attempt. Subscribe for more stories like this. Chapters 0:00 Laughing at a Ford 0:44 Lucien, the Track Marshal 1:40 Paola From Maranello 2:26 What Le Mans Means 3:17 Ford Beat Ferrari in 1966 4:04 Inches Versus Millimeters 5:24 A Ford? At Le Mans? 6:13 Yes, a Truck Engine 8:30 Heat, Gearboxes and Bourdais 10:11 An Overnight Brass Fitting 12:01 A Bet on a Sticker 12:25 The Race Starts in Rain 13:34 Night Watch at Arnage 14:28 A Penalty and a Spin 15:29 The Longest Last Hour 17:08 Won by 10.2 Seconds 19:21 The Sticker Goes On