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vacuum-tube machine which occupied
a whole room in the company’s payroll
department. Engineers back then said
they didn’t need computers because
they had slide rules. Carrig wrote a
program using punch cards in the For-
tran language, which is the ancestor of
most modern engineering languages.
In a 2007 interview, Chuck said,
“
Klaus asked if I could develop a pro-
gram for the four-link independent
rear suspension – not only a printout
but also graphs of wheel motion. No-
body could even figure out how to lay
it out on a drafting table because it
was too complicated. It required a
three-dimensional approach not con-
ducive to two-dimensional drafting
layouts. They gave me a time commit-
ment that was almost impossible – in
weeks, not months. It was a challenge
to me, personally
.
“
The computer was very slow by
today’s standards, something like
40,000 operations per second (now
computers at Ford are in the trillions
per second). Klaus Arning and his de-
velopment group’s Program 1493 in-
fluenced the new Mustang IRS as it
has every suspension program written
since that first breakthrough on a Fri-
day night on several bar receipts at
the Brass Rail in Detroit. It took sev-
eral intense weeks to actually develop
the program, though. I’d drop the
cards off in the evening and pick up
the results on the way to my office in
the morning.
”
That first program became known
as PG 1493, which is the grandfather
of all suspension programs since. It
could plot the X-Y-Z coordinates of the
ball joints, wheel center, ground con-
tact point, toe angle, caster angle, and
other suspension properties through
the entire range of motion. This “killer
app” became the basis of all suspen-
sion programs to this day, and was key
to Ford’s world-beating racing effort to
follow. Bob Riley, of Riley Technologies,
who started his career at Ford, still
swears by 1493. The 82-year-old said,
“
I still show up for work every day. I
like the old program because it plots a
curve, not just spits out a bunch of
numbers.
”
Riley Tech is now run by his son,
Bill, and Chip Ganassi had won the
Rolex 24 at Daytona in a Riley car
running a modified Ford EcoBoost
motor. Soon that same team will be
fielding a Ford GT at LeMans for the
anniversary of the first GT40 win, 50
years ago. Edsel (son) and Bill
(nephew) of Henry Ford II will both be
there. The apple doesn’t fall far from
the tree, as they say.
But back to the 60s. If you were
Henry Ford II who had an almost un-
limited corporate check book, the
fastest way to position your company
as a performance leader would be to
buy the epitome of sporty cars, Ferrari.
There had been rumors that Ferrari
might be open to suitors, so a pack of
lawyers and accountants was sent to
Modena, Italy, to try to determine a
sale price for the exotic automaker.
The agreed figure was $18 million, a
huge dowry in 1963, but that May,
Enzo Ferrari suddenly announced that
Ford was not “worthy” of owning Fer-
rari and the June wedding was off.
Henry Ford II was insulted, not
only on a professional level but also on
a personal level. Several of the Italian
media had made fun of Ford’s “fat”
cars. Ford decided to hit Ferrari where
it would hurt the most: beating him at
LeMans. When he called his de facto
racing team, led by Ford Director of
Special Vehicle Activities Jaques
Passino, into his office to announce the
new plan, someone asked Ford, “
What
is the budget?
” Ford is reported to
have said, “
Just do it!
”
Fortunately, or serendipitously,
Eric Broadly had just introduced his
Lola GT at the London show in Janu-
ary of 1963. It certainly wasn’t capable
of beating Ferrari as it sat there, but
it was a good basic design and, more
importantly, had a mid-mounted Ford
small-block V8 as motive power –
something revolutionary in English
car design at the time. Broadly, always
short of money, was happy to hear
from Ford, whose newly formed race
team would soon descend on his car in
the hope of turning it into their Le-
Mans racer.
Occasionally you could find one of
the first GT’s in the driveway of Arn-
ing’s home, complete with its skinny
tires, wire wheels, Euro plates, and
questionable aerodynamics. By April
of 1964 the car had been christened
the Ford GT 40 (because it was only
forty-inches high) was ready to be in-
troduced at the New York Auto Show.
The body had been massaged by Ford
designers using Ford’s wind tunnel,
and the suspension had been re-
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2016 65
The new Ford GT is shown, just prior to appearing at the London Auto Show in January,
1963. Pictured [
left to right
]: John Wyer, Eric Broadley and Roy Lunn.