Carroll Shelby: 7000+ GO LIKE HELL.
Leo Beebe: In the last three years, you and your marketing team have presided over the worst sale slump in US history. Why exactly should Mr. Ford listen to you?
Lee Iacocca: Because we've been thinking wrong. Ferrari. Now they have won four out of the last five Le Mans. We need to think like Ferrari.
Leo Beebe: Ferrari makes fewer cars in a year than we make in a day. We spend more on toilet paper than they do on their entire output! (everybody laughs) You want us to think like them?
Lee Iacocca: Enzo Ferrari will go down in history as the greatest car manufacturer of all time. (Beat) Why? Is it because he built the most cars? No. It’s because of what his cars mean. Victory. Ferrari wins at Le Mans. People, they want some of that victory. What if the Ford badge meant victory?
Lee Iacocca: Because we've been thinking wrong. Ferrari. Now they have won four out of the last five Le Mans. We need to think like Ferrari.
Leo Beebe: Ferrari makes fewer cars in a year than we make in a day. We spend more on toilet paper than they do on their entire output! (everybody laughs) You want us to think like them?
Lee Iacocca: Enzo Ferrari will go down in history as the greatest car manufacturer of all time. (Beat) Why? Is it because he built the most cars? No. It’s because of what his cars mean. Victory. Ferrari wins at Le Mans. People, they want some of that victory. What if the Ford badge meant victory?
Lee Iacocca: So, you’re saying it’s challenging.
Carroll Shelby: Look, it’s not even a track, Lee. Le Mans is eight and a half miles of country road. It’s narrow, ungraded. It’s rough. There’s no camber on the turns, no rails. You got to do that for twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours, Lee. That means night. Half of that race is in the dark, you can’t see shit. Cars coming up on you out of nowhere. Drivers stumbling around the track, pouring blood. Maybe one of them’s your friend, maybe he’s on fire. You’re exhausted, you’re hungry. Can’t remember your name, what country you’re in, and all of a sudden you realize you’re doing a hundred and ninety-eight on the straight. And if anything goes wrong, you blow a gasket, five-cent washer. That’s it, whole thing’s over. Ferrari wins again. Just like it won last year. The year before that, and the year before that. Yeah, it’s challenging.
Lee Iacocca: So you don’t think that Ford Motor Company can build the greatest race car the world’s ever seen? You think that we are incapable of winning an event like that? Even if we had a brilliant partner? Even if we wrote a blank check?
Carroll Shelby: What I’m saying is you can’t buy a win, Lee. But maybe you could buy the guy who gets you a shot.
Carroll Shelby: Look, it’s not even a track, Lee. Le Mans is eight and a half miles of country road. It’s narrow, ungraded. It’s rough. There’s no camber on the turns, no rails. You got to do that for twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours, Lee. That means night. Half of that race is in the dark, you can’t see shit. Cars coming up on you out of nowhere. Drivers stumbling around the track, pouring blood. Maybe one of them’s your friend, maybe he’s on fire. You’re exhausted, you’re hungry. Can’t remember your name, what country you’re in, and all of a sudden you realize you’re doing a hundred and ninety-eight on the straight. And if anything goes wrong, you blow a gasket, five-cent washer. That’s it, whole thing’s over. Ferrari wins again. Just like it won last year. The year before that, and the year before that. Yeah, it’s challenging.
Lee Iacocca: So you don’t think that Ford Motor Company can build the greatest race car the world’s ever seen? You think that we are incapable of winning an event like that? Even if we had a brilliant partner? Even if we wrote a blank check?
Carroll Shelby: What I’m saying is you can’t buy a win, Lee. But maybe you could buy the guy who gets you a shot.
Ken Miles: Alright, so let's just look at this for a moment, and for argument's sake, we'll just gonna forget the whole 'ninety days' thing, alright? So let's just pretend you've got all the money in the world and all the time in the world...
Carroll Shelby: I like the sound of that.
Ken Miles: Alright, so... you think that Ford is gonna let you build the car that you want the way you want it? The Ford Motor Company? Those guys? Have you ever been to Detroit? I mean, they have floors and floors of lawyers and millions of marketing guys, and they're all gonna want to meet you, and they're all gonna want their photos taken with the great Carroll Shelby, and they're gonna kiss your ass, and they're gonna go back to their lovely offices, and they're gonna work out new ways to screw you. Why? Because they can't help it. Because they just want to please their boss, who wants to please his boss, who wants to please his boss, and they hate themselves for it but deep down, who they hate even more are guys like you, because you're not like them, because you don't think like them, because you're different.
Henry Ford II: Give me one reason why I don’t fire everyone associated with this abomination, starting with you.
Carroll Shelby: Well, sir, I was thinking about that very question as I sat out there in your lovely waiting room. As I was sitting there, I watched that little red folder, right there, go through four pairs of hands before it got to you. Of course, that don’t include the twenty-two or so other Ford employees who probably poked at it before it made its way up to the nineteenth floor. With all due respect, sir, you can’t win a race by committee. You need one man in charge.
Carroll Shelby: Well, sir, I was thinking about that very question as I sat out there in your lovely waiting room. As I was sitting there, I watched that little red folder, right there, go through four pairs of hands before it got to you. Of course, that don’t include the twenty-two or so other Ford employees who probably poked at it before it made its way up to the nineteenth floor. With all due respect, sir, you can’t win a race by committee. You need one man in charge.
Henry Ford II: See that little building down there? In World War II, three out of five US bombers rolled off that line. You think Roosevelt beat Hitler? Think again. This isn't the first time Ford Motor's gone to war in Europe. We know how to do more than push paper. And there is one man running this company, you report to him. You understand me?
Carroll Shelby: Yes, sir.
Henry Ford II: Go ahead, Carroll. Go to war.
Carroll Shelby: Thank you, sir.
Ken Miles: If you’re going to push a piece of machinery to the limit, and expect it to hold together, you have to have some sense of where that limit is. Look out there. Out there is the perfect lap. No mistakes. Every gear change, every corner. Perfect. You see it?
Peter Miles: I think so.
Ken Miles: Most people can’t. Most people don’t even know it’s out there, but it is. It’s there.
Peter Miles: I think so.
Ken Miles: Most people can’t. Most people don’t even know it’s out there, but it is. It’s there.
There's a point at 7,000 RPM... where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless. Just disappears. And all that's left is a body moving through space and time. 7,000 RPM. That's where you meet it. You feel it coming. It creeps up on you, close in your ear. Asks you a question. The only question that matters. Who are you?
— Carroll Shelby
