KEN MILES: FORD'S FORGOTTEN SUPERSTAR

A Hollywood film with an English hero? profiles the remarkable Ken Miles, who laid the groundwork for Le Mans glory - only to see it snatched away

- KEN MILES:

He was known as Teddy Teabag, says Charlie Agapiou.

“He’d use one teabag per race and by the end he was just drinking hot water!” A snapshot of Ken Miles - British to the end though US-based, maximising his resources, completely unfazed by anyone else’s view of him. Ken Miles - unseen buttress to the Carroll Shelby operation, and most famous for not winning Le Mans.

That muddled triumph of 1966, when three Ford MkIIs bellowed across the line at La Sarthe to claim victory for the Blue Oval without knowing who was first, forms the dramatic core of the fact-based film Le Mans ’66 (or Ford v Ferrari in the US), and surprisingly it picks out a relatively unknown English driver and engineer to head the US cavalry against the bad guys - in this case that foreign fiend, Enzo Ferrari.

So does a rangy, laconic bloke from Sutton Coldfield deserve a film built round him? Is he the key to Cobra and Ford MkII success? He certainly won a bundle of races right from the start, in cars he modified himself to go absurdly fast. That’s a good mix - rapid driver, inventive engineer, intuitive tester. And if you throw in your lot with a powerful Texan who can assemble the might of the Ford Motor Company behind him to tackle the biggest prize in European racing, then you have the makings of a pretty good story. And that’s real life, before Hollywood gets its hands on it.