The Ken Miles death in Ford v Ferrari is remarkably accurate — though the movie changes some details about how Ken Miles died for storytelling purposes. For years, Hollywood wanted to adapt the true story of Ford’s triumph over the perennial champion Ferrari at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race. It’s a fascinating tale of clashing egos, behind-the-scenes machinations, and talented artists struggling to balance creative integrity with commercial viability, culminating in a thrilling vehicular race where one false step could mean a horrific — and fatal — crash. Christian Bale, who had previously worked with director James Mangold on his 3:10 to Yuma remake, costars as Ken Miles, the highly talented but hot-tempered World War II vet-turned-professional driver whom Shelby (being an old acquaintance) enlists to help him.
There’s a notable reason the true story of Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby in Ford v Ferrari captured the world’s attention so fiercely in 1966, and that’s Ken Miles’s death. As the film sadly depicts, just a few months after Ford defeated Ferrari in the 1966 Le Mans, Ken Miles was killed while testing out a new Ford vehicle (the J-car) at California’s Riverside International Raceway. Just as happened to Christian Bale in Ford v Ferrari, Ken Mile’s Ford test car suddenly flipped, crashed, and caught fire. The exact cause of the fault has never been fully determined to this day, but it caused Ken Miles to be ejected from the vehicle, killing him instantly at the end of an entire day’s worth of test runs. It’s a brutal blow to viewers as things are being tied up in Ford v Ferrari’s latter half, and is mostly accurate in the movie. However, there were some changes made to Ken Miles’s death in Ford v Ferrari.
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Why Ford v Ferrari Changed Ken Miles’ Death
The real Ken Miles was killed from the impact after being ejected from his test car, and the specific reasons for the failure of the Ford J-Car he was testing were never identified (although there’s been much speculation). James Mangold changed many of the specifics of the moment of Ken Miles’s death in Ford v Ferrari. However, these changes were incredibly well implemented and served to improve both the narrative of Ford v Ferrari and its core message of why the death of Ken Miles was such a tragedy.
In the film, rather than ejecting Ken Miles after an unexplained fault, his Ford test car crashes after experiencing brake failure. Christian Bale’s Ford v Ferrari character is killed in the ensuing fire, resulting in the Ken Miles death scene. Miles was the second test driver to be killed while testing a J-car in the span of five months, with the previous driver, Walt Hansgen, being killed before Miles. The J-car testing was halted before resuming with Miles at the wheel. Following the Ken Miles death, the car was renamed Ford Mk IV and was heavily modified.
The Ken Miles death in Ford v Ferrari was justifiably tweaked to deliver a narrative payoff. Despite the changes made by James Mangold for Ford v Ferrari, the movie has been lauded in the racing community for its realism. There isn’t a film out there based on a true story that doesn’t exaggerate or tweak the details of events to deliver an emotional payoff or make the theatrical narrative smoother, and the same was the case for Ford v Ferrari. And as much as Hollywood loves including an uplifting ending to biopics, Ford v Ferrari subverts those expectations and reminds everyone that race car drivers don’t always make it out of the car alive.
Ford v Ferrari’s Changes Showed The Weight Of Ken Miles’s Death On His Family And Carroll Shelby
Seeing as Ford v Ferrari is really more the story of Shelby and Miles’ tempestuous friendship than it is one about Ford’s racing program, it makes sense that the movie alters a few real-life details in order to keep the focus on how the Ken Miles death impacted Carroll Shelby and his loved ones, rather than getting into the minutiae of how things began to change at Ford after that. It also allows the previous sequence involving Christian Bale’s Ken Miles’ near-death to act as proper foreshadowing and for the film as a whole to show the high price that race car drivers can pay for putting their lives at risk, but which spectators often don’t see.
There’s another moment in Ford v Ferrari in the buildup to the Ken Miles death scene that — while created with a heavy dose of creative license — underlines some essential truths of how complex Miles’s relationship with his loved ones was due to his work, and why his death was such a tragedy. The scene in question revolves around Miles, Shelby, and their team testing out the GT40 MkII, only for the vehicle’s brakes to fail and the car to catch fire, very nearly killing Miles in the process. Both Miles’ wife, Mollie (Caitriona Balfe), and his young son Pete (Noah Jupe) are present for the crash.
It’s a pivotal moment for Peter Miles, and though Ford v Ferrari changes a bit of the true story, his character comes to appreciate just how dangerous his dad’s line of work truly is. While it was a change that tragically came too late, the death of Ken Miles opened up many questions about safety for racing drivers, and Ford v Ferrari’s changes enabled this conversation to be condensed into a few key emotional scenes. While Miles’ real-life death led to Ford installing a NASCAR-style rollover cage in their race cars and favoring the use of younger drivers moving forward, something that wouldn’t have had the same effect in the film as it was largely seen as a self-serving move for Ford at the time rather than a respectful or personal one for Miles.
Ken Miles’s Son Collaborated With Christian Bale
The Ken Miles death scene is important, only adding more weight to Christian Bale’s performance as the real-life figure. Reportedly, actor Christian Bale worked closely with Ken’s son, Peter Miles, to make sure that his characterization of the race car icon was as true to life as possible. Bale is no stranger to taking on roles that represent real people, such as that of Dick Cheney in Vice and John Rolfe in The New World, but Ken Miles was a special case. Unlike other public figures from which there was a wealth of information to draw from, Ken Miles did not have a lot of video footage or interviews to his name. Therefore, Bale had to rely heavily on Peter’s recollection. In an interview (via LeMans.org), Peter Miles had this to say of his own contributions:
I gave Christian Bale info about my dad from press clippings and magazine articles, and I showed him personal photos and shared audio recordings with him. Bale was looking to remain as faithful as possible to my father. I also met Caitriona Balfe and gave her snapshots of my mother and described her as best as I could.
In addition to this, both Christian Bale and Matt Damon went to great lengths to ensure they portrayed Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby correctly, even after Ford v Ferrari had finished filming. As reported by ESPN, both actors spent an extensive amount of time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to ensure Ford v Ferrari was as authentic a movie as possible. Christian Bale especially is known for his method acting, and the pair’s commitment to capturing the true emotions present in the high-risk world of NASCAR is apparent throughout the movie, both in terms of critical reception and how highly regarded it is by racing professionals and fans.
One thing that was especially important to both Christian Bale and Matt Damon, in addition to respectfully showing the moment Ken Miles died, was that their characterizations were received well by those who knew the real-life Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby. The pair reportedly would ask anyone and everyone they could find who’d work with or knew the real Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby, determined to make sure that their portrayals were accurate down to the smallest detail. Christian Bale’s explanation for the lengths he took to capture the real Ken Miles was particularly insightful:
As mythological as some people are, especially people like Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby, who risked their lives every minute of just doing their jobs, they were still real people. The only way to honor who they were and what they accomplished is to take the time to get the little things right. We owe them that attention to detail, don’t we? You miss with that, the people will let you know that you missed it. Not because they are harsh people, but because they have a real passion for motor racing and the people in it. They care that much about it.”
The Real-Life Racing Movies In Pole Position
There are plenty of other, often-real-life-based racing movies on-par with Ford v Ferrari’s caliber. One such film is 2013’s Rush. Overseen by legendary movie director Ron Howard, actors Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl star in the film depiction of Formula One racers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. The British and Austrian racers had a famous rivalry in the 1970s, and the well-executed film chronicles the story well, which has been reflected over the years in its mostly-positive critical response.
Another racing movie that more than holds its own is Days Of Thunder, which stars notably young Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Robert Duvall while telling the story of a young American racer named Cole Trickle. The three aforementioned actors all give memorable performances, especially Duvall’s gruff-yet-wise character of Harry Hogge – who famously informs Cole that “there’s nothing stock about a stock car.” Last, but not least, on this list of great racing movies like Ford v Ferrari is 1971’s Le Mans. Featuring iconic movie star Steve McQueen, this aptly-named racing flick stars — among other important characters — McQueen as Porsche team racer Michael Delaney and Ferrari driver Erich Stahler (Siegfried Rauch). Like other previously mentioned racing films, Le Mans deals with the weighty, ever-present risks affixed to life as a professional racecar driver.