I'm going to come right out and say this on the first paragraph of this "review": I couldn't get a read on the Ford Mark IV, and therefore am not qualified to critique it. I also didn't have a 330 P4 to test, so I can speak even less about it. This isn't a review as much as it is me rambling about my time in a Ford Mark IV, and a bit of a tangential rant near the end.
With that said, time to flush my credibility down the toilet.
It was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in a car - I simply could not get a read on the Mk IV. At times, I would grossly overspeed into corners. Others, I vastly undersped for, all while I felt like I was braking at roughly the same points. Sometimes the tyres would bite and grip for days, and other times, they would refuse to do anything entirely. The car could go from confidence encouraging, "Yeah, of course I can do more, are you kidding?!", and go completely limp in the next instant you push it a millimetre farther. It felt like I bought a Chinese knockoff product that promised the queen of blows down below, but wound up giving me the Fat Man of blows to my face.
Wars would be started and ended by the amount of money at risk here!
Sure, I've raced and reviewed bad cars before. Hell, for the past three weeks, I've doled out three Beater verdicts, broken up only by a question mark. It'd be one thing if the car was slow and handled like sheet - everyone has the same car, and I'd usually be competitive in these one make races - the Challenger from last week was a bona fide Beater, same bias ply tyres, 7 litre V8 with a 4 speed manual... yet I finished with a podium in a few races, and actually won ONE race with it (unless Vic's modesty got the best of him and let me have one...). I hope it doesn't sound boastful, because I'm really trying to just make an objective point here.
Contrast that with how badly I did in the Mk IV: I had to brake so early I received a few surprised shunts into my rear (a ha ha ha), and no matter how far up the grid I started with reverse grids, I was dead last within a lap, most with death and injury in the process. I pushed it so hard I had a few wipeouts on my own. I couldn't understand it at all. I was driving at the car's absolute limit, tyres screeching in pain, turning as hard as I could, and others simply waltzed past me casually. It felt like me and the car were speaking different languages altogether, and we simply couldn't come to an understanding. I genuinely don't remember when was the last time I felt like such a beginner, such a chump, in a car.
Which layout of Le Sarthe is THIS?
Being utterly destrolished in this week's races proves that it really is just me not understanding and meshing with the car, and I don't know what it is about the car that made it seemingly speak in an entirely different language than quite literally every other car I've driven. With it being made absolutely clear that this car and I don't mix, and that therefore I am the least qualified person on earth to talk about it, you can disbelieve my description of my driving experience in the Mk IV. Hell, I'm not even sure if I want to take myself seriously.
The bias ply tyres I think (I guess...?) were responsible for most of the ambiguity I felt in the Mk IV. It really felt to me like they bit at different points each and every time you pressed the brake pedal and turned the wheel. The tyres didn't grip and let go as linearly as modern radials do. Not only that, but they weren't very communicative either. I at no point ever knew which tyre had grip and which were slipping, until I heard the screams of murder and saw their white blood in the air behind me. Every time I turned the wheel hard, it felt like most of my steering input was used to flex the chassis of the car instead of rotating it. The car felt taut with little body movement, true to a racing car. Yet, what little body movement it did have felt snappy, sudden, overbearing, disorienting, and completely unrecoverable if the side windows caught a bit too much wind.
Speaking of, there's a very odd knocking sound in the cockpit of the car at speed, almost like a whole cylinder had come loose in the block. I was given every assurance that the car was in immaculate, race ready condition, as it would've been exactly at 1967's race start. I can only theorise that that knocking sound was just turbulent air whipping this antique body non stop.
I honestly think that the only reason the Mark IV won Le Mans is because it does 10km/h more than the P4 down Mulsanne Straight - a drag limited top speed of 318km/h. The P4 does manage to keep with and catch up to the Mark IV, but the moment it pulls out of the latter's slipstream to overtake, it simply falls back before being able to complete the move.
Everywhere else, it seemed to me like the P4 had the advantage - it was lighter*, has one more forward gear, and walloped the Mk IV so badly on the launch and mid speed acceleration, it made the Mk IVs look like they've stalled - and they most likely did, because much like the Challenger from last week, the NA V8 in the Mk IV is a peaky one, and choking it with TCS at launch kills it. To give an example of how big a difference the launch and mid range acceleration between these two are, we were doing standing starts at Le Mans. 1st to 4th were Fords, me being 2nd, and Rick 5th in a Ferrari. I took the lead on launch, and I almost side swiped Rick's P4 on the Dunlop right hander kink going into the first braking zone of the circuit, simply because I wasn't expecting anything to shoot up to me at launch like that!
From what I hear from the Ferrari drivers, you have to simply go hell for leather on launch in the P4 as well, requiring spinning of the wheels at launch and punishing drivers with traction control active. This means that both these cars are challenging to launch, and god help you if you need to dodge someone off the line who didn't get the memo while your tyres are on fire:
Terrified Asian screeching drowned out by tyre noise.
It's shocking to me how much better the P4 was at every aspect aside from top speed, and quite honestly, I don't really understand why a Le Mans racecar would be topless. Still, I think on any other track other than Le Mans, Monza, and Route X, the P4 is, as-tested, the faster car, and better value for 20 million. Even with the 1.475km (0.917 miles) home straight of Fuji, top speed wasn't a factor in either car, meaning the P4 outpaces the Mk IV over the entire track. And if you need further proof, Vic was in the Mk IV the whole night, and knowing him, he's usually in the slower car of a 2-car week to give the rest of the field a chance.
*And now, the rant. The P4 has a claimed mass of 792kg (1746lbs), which would make it 208kg (459lbs) lighter than the Mk IV. However, Ferrari can NEVER be trusted to not understate their mass and overstate their power figures, like an insecure teenage girl who never grew up in all the time between 1967 to the 2020. Yes, I will bring these recurring incidents up every time a Ferrari comes up. No, I can't let it go. It's the reason why I can't trust spec sheets and reviews anymore, and have to waste hours fact checking sources, making sure quoted mass figures are kerb, and making sure they're legitimate, because FRICKERS like them exist and I hate them for it.
It should go without saying to anyone who's ever pushed a car hard that trust is of the utmost importance in a performance car. How far would you be willing to trust a car built by a company that reeks of dishonesty in their spec sheets? Would you want to be seen in one, would you want yourself to be personified by one? Cars, and driving is way too personal a thing for me, and I absolutely refuse to accept, or even be seen in any car with their insecure teenage girl hissy fit badge on it. No, there's nothing you can say to change my mind about it. Even the "definitive" Ferrari is a dishonest sack of sloppy sheet, and so that seems to me to be how they want to be perceived and defined. Just keep in mind that the 330 P4 in Forza weighs 1030kg (2271 lbs), 30kg MORE than the Mark IV, for a total mass discrepancy of 238kg. No, I couldn't find any other source that corroborates this, but what am I supposed to do? There are only four of these things in the world. Am I supposed to go up to an extremely rich owner to politely ask him if I could weigh his most valuable asset to ascertain if it's a pretentious sack of sheet for my review? Literally every other manufacturer uses kerb mass, so why are Ferrari cars allowed to run as if they were dry? Any Ferrari to me is therefore an automatic Beater on sight. If we can't even test it accurately, there was never any room for any meaningful discussion to begin with, in my mind. The whole house might not even exist.
That brings this tangent quite conveniently back to the matter at hand: My verdicts for these cars, one of which I haven't driven and one I felt I drove too much, is a Beater and a question mark. No prizes for guessing which is awarded to which car.
Yep, the Ford and I were on such a huge disagreement that I got sick of driving it. I stopped voting for tracks because I really didn't care where we'd run these cars next. I even left a well populated meet early because I simply didn't want to drive this thing anymore. Yet, I realise that it's a problem with me as a driver, and not the car; others performed well in the Ford, such as Mustang, Vic "Ken Miles" Reign, and Drex. I therefore don't feel qualified to really call it a Beater, in spite of how sick it made me feel.
And it sucks, because I really, really want to like the Ford GTs. If humiliating a brand like Ferrari wasn't enough a reason to root for them, then the cars, both vintage and modern, look like the sickest things on the road that hasn't aged a day. Ford did a spectacular job bringing that vintage look into modern times and making it relevant, in contrast to the other vintage restomods that look painful and awkward on the streets today. The performance relative to their eras have always been staggering, and I really like how Ford "protects" the GT name so well, only using it on cars that could really challenge the world and deliver on what was promised. I just... wish I gelled with them more. I find myself lustful and respecting of the Ford GT40s and GTs, but I can just... never seem to really love them. I just never found that connection with them. And it sucks.
If I had to name a few takeaways from this little field trip like we had to back in school, it'd be:
a) Radial Tyres are quite literally black magic, and,
b) I rescind all my earlier complaints about the Challenger's low top speed, because I now see that it is not an engineering oversight, but rather, a safety feature.
And, lastly,
c) Never trust a Ferrari.
Small Quirks:
The Mk IV is INFURIATING to work with in the livery editor. The car is fiendishly curvy, which makes it a nightmare to get even its stock door number circle to look right. Its stock stripes not only aren't centred, but they don't even line up across body panels, which is making me irrationally mad.
Yellow line: centre line
Green line: centre of the rear stripes
Not only that, but the stripes themselves don't even reach the end of their panels, and the black and white stripes don't even end at the same place. URGH.
The Mk IV and P4 both unfortunately lose their bias ply tread patterns if they as much touch the livery editor, so the default Racing Hards of the Mk IV get replaced with grooveless slick lookalikes. The tyre letterings are also unfortunately lost, and cannot be reapplied.
The only place where the tyre lettering remains is... the spare tyre! It even retains the tread pattern!
The P4 also has a spare tyre up its butt. Are Le Mans racers required to carry a spare for the race?
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