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The character sheet for Ford v Ferrari.
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The Miles Family
Ken Miles
Kenneth Henry Jarvis Miles
"If you’re going to push a piece of machinery to the limit, and expect it to hold together, you’ve got to have some kind of a sense of where that limit is."
Portrayed By: Christian Bale
A British race car driver hired by Carroll Shelby for Ford in an effort to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- Character Death: Ken dies in a crash while testing at the Riverside International Raceway, just as he did in real life.
- Character Development: At the start of the film, Miles is shown to be quite hot-headed, harassing a steward and throwing a spanner at Carroll's head. By the end of the film, he is shown to be more level-headed, particularly as he is driving for Ford. This is shown when he does not react angrily to losing the '66 Le Mans after being told to slow down to finish alongside the other two Ford cars.
- Experienced Protagonist: Miles had been racing for around a decade by the time the film's events rolled around, having raced in his first 12 Hours of Sebring in 1957.
- Graceful Loser: He takes ultimately getting second place based on a technicality with pretty fine grace; he had already set a record by that point and defeated the Ferrari driver.
- Happily Married: To Mollie, who also seems to know a thing or two (or more) about cars.
- Henpecked Husband / Parenting the Husband: Just as Mollie subverts the Wet Blanket Wife aspect of this typical dynamic, so Ken subverts this aspect. When his mechanics business collapses and his racing successes aren't bringing in enough to support his family, it's Ken himself who acknowledges without any nagging needed that it's time to give up the dream and settle for a steady job at a larger mechanical shop. While he is tempted back by Shelby to work on the
- The Hero Dies: Ken dies in a crash while testing at the Riverside International Raceway, just as he did in real life.
- Hero Protagonist: Is the main character of the film, and the guy to root for.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Is great friends with Shelby, whose relationship is one of the main plot points of the film. His death has a profound impact on Shelby, who cannot keep it from eating away at him.
- ThePerfectionist: When it comes to car design.
Mollie Miles
Mollie Miles
"Don’t lie to me, Ken! Don’t lie about what you feel or what you want because you think the lie will make me happy!"
Portrayed By: Caitríona Balfe
Ken's wife, and like her husband, is into cars.
- Happily Married: To Ken, who she wholeheartedly supports with his racing career and auto shop.
- The Smurfette Principle: The only major female character, naturally as the film is about motor racing in the 1960s.
- Wet Blanket Wife: Subverted: Mollie shares a lot of Ken's interests and is very supportive of him. The one time Mollie gets on Ken's case about his work is when he's sneaking around behind her back to do it, and the real issue there is that she's upset that he doesn't feel able to trust her with what he's doing. She just wants him to do what makes him happy, and so is fully on board with him racing for Ford. Especially when he reveals how much they're going to pay him.
Peter Miles
Peter Miles
"Mr. Shelby, are you building a car that's gonna beat Ferrari?"
Portrayed By: Noah Jupe
Ken and Mollie's son, who is as interested in cars as much as his parents.
- Nice Guy: Is a sweet, innocent boy that never expresses ill feelings toward anybody.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent; Jupe plays Peter with a distinct English accent (likely his own) when he had lived in Southern California for basically his entire life, the family having moved there in 1952. Granted, this isn't unheard of when both parents speak with foreign accents.
Shelby American, Inc.
Carroll Shelby
Carroll Hall Shelby
"There’s a point at 7000RPM where everything fades... The machine becomes weightless. It disappears. All that’s left, a body moving through space, and time."
Portrayed By: Matt Damon
Founder and owner of Shelby American, Inc., and tasked with developing a race car for the Ford Motor Company that can beat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- Drives Like Crazy: Can’t fly a plane if his life depends on it.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Is great friends with Miles, whose relationship is one of the main plot points of the film. He tears up when talking to Peter about his father's death.
- Retired Badass: Was forced to retire due to a heart condition. Even though his Le Mans-winning days are over, he is instrumental in Ford's success at '66 and subsequent Le Mans. Oh, and his own company is also doing very well.
Phil Remington
Phil Remington
"It’s been six months, Shel." (walks out of Shelby's office) "Sometimes they don’t get out of the car."
Portrayed By: Ray McKinnon
An automotive engineer that served as Shelby's chief engineer, and was vital in the development of the Ford GT40 and its successors.
Charlie Agapiou
Charlie Agapiou
Portrayed By: Jack McMullen
A mechanic that worked for Shelby, and helped develop and maintain the Ford racing cars.
- The Prankster: Enjoys throwing firecrackers at girls "all damned day" according to Phil.
Ford Motor Company
Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II
"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. And you report to him. Go ahead, Shelby. Go to war."
Portrayed By: Tracy Letts
The CEO and Chair of the Ford Motor Company. After Enzo Ferrari insults him, he is determined to bury Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- Foil: To Enzo Ferrari.
- Both are heads of massive automobile companies that bear their surname. However, while Ford prefers to sit in his office most of the time, Ferrari prefers to sit in his factory, nearby the Scuderia Ferrari racing cars. Ford leaves with his wife in a helicopter for dinner part way through the Le Mans race, while Ferrari stays for the entire race to watch his team, even after all of his cars have crashed out of the race. However, while Ferrari berates his pit crew when they make a mistake, Ford calmly asks what is wrong, such as when Ken's door would not shut at the start of the race.
- It's also suggested that Ford is more in the car-manufacturing game for
Money, Dear Boy and to live up to the prestige of his family name rather than Ferrari's more artistically-driven approach; his car business is massively successful but, it is noted at the beginning, lacks the connections with quality, success and beauty that Ferrari's less-successful business has. He's also in the race more for revenge against Ferrari personally and as a brand-building exercise, rather than Ferrari's love of the sport itself.
Lee Iacocca
Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca
"They don't want to drive the same dull 50’s cars their parents drove. Kids today want glamor. They want sex. They want to go fast. Gentlemen. It's time for Ford Motor Company to go racing."
Portrayed By: Jon Bernthal
The vice president of the Ford Motor Company. He comes up with the idea of Ford going into racing to help arrest their worst ever sales slump.
- Color-Coded Characters: A subtle example. Along among the Ford executives we see in the film, who like Henry Ford Jr pretty much uniformly dress in an early-'60s appropriate black suit and dark tie, Iacocca typically dresses in a rather elegant and expensive-looking light-grey Italian suit with a white tie, indicating both how while he nevertheless fits into the corporate world in general terms he nevertheless stands out amongst the (mostly mediocre) Ford executive team and is more forward-thinking than the people he is surrounded by.
- Nice Guy: Unlike Beebe, Iacocca does not favor or have a vendetta against any particular driver, though is "unsure" about Miles. He never loses his temper or tell off anybody, something that almost every other major character in the film does at some point.
- Young Future Famous People: The events of the movie coincide with the launch of the Ford Mustang, a massive hit that Iacocca pushed and lobbied for Ford to build and a success that made him a public figure, ultimately setting into motion the events that led him to be one of the first modern celebrity CEOs upon his move to Chrysler in the late '70s.
Leo Beebe
Leo Beebe
"I may not get the finer points of racing Mr. Shelby but I know people. Miles is a beatnik. He dresses like one. Ford means reliability. Ken Miles isn't a Ford man."
Portrayed By: Josh Lucas
The senior executive vice president of the Ford Motor Company. Tasked with running Ford's racing operations, he has a vendetta towards Ken Miles that stems from Ken telling Leo the Ford Mustang is a "terrible car".
- Big Bad Ensemble: He acts as one of the main antagonists of the film. Beebe is the obnoxious corporate stooge who tries to sabotage Ken over a personal vendetta, while Enzo Ferrari is the leader of the rival car company that Ken wants to beat at Le Mans.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Downplayed. While not engaging in the typical form of corruption, Beebe does everything in his power to hinder or prevent Miles from racing for Ford. He excludes Miles from the '65 Le Mans team, and conspires to have Miles slow down in the '66 race to prevent him from taking all of the glory, which cost Miles the win due to a technicality.
- The Dragon: Is Henry Ford II's right-hand man.
- Evil Is Petty: While his “evil” is limited mostly to being a massive jerkass, his pettiness is genuinely character defining. Ken criticized a presentation Mustang after Beebe was a jerk to his kid, and thus Beebe dedicates himself to sabotaging Miles throughout the entire film.
- Faux Affably Evil: Keeps up appearances as part of his position at Ford, but does what he can to prevent Miles from racing for them.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: He takes on a far more villainous role in the movie than he did in real life, acting as the living personification of obstructive corporate bureaucracy.
- Jerkass: Has a vendetta against Miles from the moment they met. He does what he can to exclude Miles from Ford's racing program, and orders Shelby to tell Miles to slow down toward the end of Le Mans to finish alongside the other Fords, ultimately costing Miles the win.
- Karma Houdini: He suggests to Ford that their three cars line up together to cross the finish line at the same time at Le Mans, possibly to stop Miles from winning. The Ford cars comply, which ends up costing Miles the win on a technicality. While Shelby does confront him on this, he can ultimately walk away happy with the result, both for himself and for the company.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: He does everything in his power to sabotage Ken out of personal dislike towards him.
Ferrari S.p.A.
Enzo Ferrari
Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari
"Tell him he is not Henry Ford. He is Henry Ford the Second."
Portrayed By: Remo Girone
Founder of Ferrari and its automobile racing team Scuderia Ferrari.
- Big Bad Ensemble: He acts as one of the main antagonists of the film. Ferrari is the leader of the rival car company that Ken wants to beat at Le Mans, while Leo Beebe is the obnoxious corporate stooge who tries to sabotage Ken over a personal vendetta. Though "Big Bad" is maybe stretching the matter a little, since aside from wanting to keep winning Le Mans he's really not that villainous.
- Foil: To Henry Ford II.
- Both are heads of massive automobile companies that bear their surname. However, while Ford prefers to sit in his office most of the time, Ferrari prefers to sit in his factory, nearby the Scuderia Ferrari racing cars. Ford leaves with his wife in a helicopter for dinner part way through the Le Mans race, while Ferrari stays for the entire race to watch his team, even after all of his cars have crashed out of the race. However, while Ferrari berates his pit crew when they make a mistake, Ford calmly asks what is wrong, such as when Ken's door would not shut at the start of the race. He is also the one to openly recognise Ken's skill as a driver by doffing his hat and giving him a nod of approval, while Ford as a company is depicted as throwing Ken under the bus to secure a team win and to boost their prestige at his expense.
- It's also suggested that Ferrari's main motivation for building cars, and especially racing them, is Doing It for the Art, unlike the more commercial profit-driven aims of Ford. Ferrari is more interested in the artistry of building a fine vehicle and takes pleasure in the race in and of itself rather than as a prestige or brand-building exercise. It's noted at the beginning that while Ferrari is going bankrupt, he'll still go down in history as the greatest car-manufacturer ever.
- Gratuitous English: That quote you see under the image is his only English-language line.
- Hero of Another Story: There's a perfectly plausible retelling of this story which focuses on the artesanal independent car marker going up against the massive corporate juggernaut. Pretty much the only thing that makes him an antagonist is that he happens to be the head of the company / team that our main characters are trying to beat, and that he is a Jerkass to Iacocca and, indirectly to Ford, who, at this point, are trying to save his business.
- In a somewhat
Hilarious in Hindsight move, a movie about Ferrari would indeed be made a few years later, though it doesn't actually focus on his battles against Ford.
- In a somewhat
- Opposing Sports Team: He is the one who Ken needs to beat at the big race, but he doesn't do anything particularly villainous besides personally insulting Ford II.
- Pretender Diss: Mocks Ford II for being a cheap ripoff of his grandfather.
- Worthy Opponent: After all the Ferrari drivers are eliminated and Ken completes (but does not technically win) the race, Enzo magnanimously doffs his hat and gives the rival team's driver a silent nod of approval, a gesture Ken acknowledges with an equally subtle nod.
Franco Gozzi
Franco Gozzi
Portrayed By: Corrado Invernizzi
A high-ranking executive at Ferrari. He gives the Ford entourage a tour of their factory and introduces them to Signor Ferrari.
- The Dragon: Is the second-highest ranking Ferrari executive shown on-screen.
