A narrative history of the 1963 collapsed Ford buyout of Ferrari and the four-year Ford–Ferrari war at Le Mans it produced. When Enzo Ferrari walked away from a near-complete sale rather than let Ford control the racing budget, a furious Henry Ford II poured millions into the GT40 program with the single goal of beating Ferrari at the world's most prestigious endurance race. The book traces both sides of the rivalry through the late 1960s, covering the engineering, the politics, and the personalities — with much of Ferrari's story told from Ford's perspective, as the antagonist who got away.
This book is primarily a racing history, but for founders its central case study is the price of trying to retain control in a deal you need to close. Ferrari's 1963 refusal to let Ford control the racing budget preserved his autonomy over the thing he cared most about but cost him a fortune and provoked Ford into building the GT40 program that beat him at Le Mans four years straight. The lesson is not that Ferrari was wrong to walk — it's that a walking-away founder should anticipate what the jilted counterparty will do next. The book also documents what happens when a company's competitive response becomes personal: Ford's Le Mans program was not a rational business decision but an act of institutional vengeance, and that emotional dimension of competition is something every founder should recognise and exploit.