In January 2015, Ford unveiled a new car at the Detroit Auto Show and the automotive world lost its collective mind. This wasn’t just some Explorer or Focus, rather a supercar, a carbon-fiber
GT powered by a mid-mounted six cylinder Ecoboost engine that churned out over 600 horsepower. It was sexy, jawdropping, and historic, a callback to the legendary Ford GT Mk IIs that stuck it
to Ferrari and finished 1-2-3 at Le Mans in 1966. Detroit was back, and Ford was going back to LeMans.
In Return to Glory, journalist Matthew DeBord tells the recent story of Ford, how CEO Alan Mulally’s big gamble and his ?One Ford” plan helped the iconic company weather the financial
crisis without a government bailout. DeBord recounts the history of the GT in the 1960s, details the creation of the new GT, and follows the team through the racing season, from an
inauspicious debut at Daytona where the cars kept breaking down, to glimmers of hope at Sebring, and the team’s first victory at Laguna Seca in Monterey.
Finally, DeBord joins the Ford team in LeMans in June, 2016. This fabled 24-hour endurance race is designed to break cars and drivers, and it was at Le Mans, fifty years after the company’s
greatest triumph, that Ford’s comeback was put to the ultimate test.
