Ford
No industrial company played a bigger role in the evolution of American culture than the Ford Motor Company. Founded in Detroit, Michigan by Henry Ford in 1903, the voting structure means that it has been in continuous family control for over 100 years, despite being a public company. Today it remains one of the largest family-controlled companies in the world.
Henry Ford is rightly recognised as one of America’s great industrialists and the early car models, like the mass-produced Ford Model T, changed how Americans travelled and lived. Two generations later, in the 1960s, Ford challenged Ferrari’s dominance in the racing car marketplace; an unlikely story that was well chronicled in the movie Ford v Ferrari.
Some of the scenes from that film were shot at Willow Springs race circuit in California and we were excited to have access to this location to tell our own Ford racing division stories.
The 1967 Ford GT40 MK111 sits strikingly low to the ground and I saw an opportunity to pair the car with Cindy Crawford’s long legs. Hopefully the visual mismatch would then serve to highlight and showcase the beauty of both subjects.
Cindy is one of the brightest of the lead supermodels since the 1980s and role playing is hardly a challenge for her. Meanwhile I suspect that Jimmie Johnson - one of the most successful NASCAR racers of all time - is also a performing artist in his spare time. The camera likes him and he likes the camera. The two American stars lives had not crossed until that day in Willow Springs, but they worked well together in this set and this photograph is certainly a keeper. Cindy is exceptional.
I want to thank Sam Bryne and his team at CrossHarbor Capital Partners for trusting us with this project and the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA for transporting some very precious sports cars up to Willow Springs.