What was it like being able to work on Forza with the GT before the public knew the car existed? That had to be fun, and difficult.
For the record, thanks - I used Forza photo mode and the home garage a lot, endlessly re-painting the car when choosing a color. :lol
The process with Ford was amazing and really had to be careful as we were getting access before many of the Ford execs had even been brought into the program. Mark Bentley (from Ford) was the first to start whispering in our ear actually at the booth during E3. This early partnership was absolutely necessary if we were truly going to partner on this car. Ford approached us after Forza 5, they really liked the level of partnership and collaboration we had on the P1 with McLaren and wanted to one up it with the GT. We didn't know what they were talking to us about for some time... only that it was going to be very special.
So this is where I have to admit that I am not the guy who gets to do much of the cool stuff. These early meetings happened with my partnership team and my Content Director John Wendl. It was exciting for them to go to the secret bunker under Ford headquarters and be brought into a room where much of the concept they were pitched with was on the walls and the team had actually used Forza as the source for much of the visuals. I don't think there was even a full scale clay model at this point so it was quite early.
Henry Ford III was really key in making this partnership happen and I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with him during the process, most of that in the USC men's Locker room, but more on that later.
Dan Greenawalt, my Design Director, is the public face of Forza but also really the soul of the franchise. He was brought in and started working with the designers at Ford to really understand the details of the design and to make sure the changes to our simulation would happen to be able to fully replicate the advances made in the car. These kinds of interactions are so incredibly valuable when they happen with companies like Ford, McLaren, and Pirelli. Dan and team travelled out to the bunker in the fall to have a deep dive with the team and see the car models. At this point we had landed on the plan to be there with Ford and announce Forza 6 at NAIAS. Really a huge hurdle for both companies as it broke with our approach of saving the announce for E3 in June and obviously a big hurdle for Ford to share their event with us.
Meanwhile a very small circle of individuals back at Turn 10 were working on the GT model for the game. It takes 6 months for us to build a game ready car, probably hard to comprehend if you don't understand all the levels of complexity but there are some articles about it online if you want to read more. It is a process that can't be turned into a 1 month build by adding more people. 9 women can't make a baby in a month, but nine women can deliver a baby a month if you sequence it right. That is our approach to building cars, we never stop. Anyway, this is where we rely on the expertise of people like Gabe (the Ford fan from the video), he is our car lead and only goes hands on when there is something this special that can't be handed off to our production army.
So by the time I finally get to be hands on is the couple days prior to NAIAS unveil. Wow I can't say enough about the professionalism of the entire Ford team. The PR team is such a high caliber bunch and really did a great job, and the marketing team as well. We showed up with our PR and Marketing teams and hit the ground running. After the morning announce it was back to back interviews - I was paired with Steve Ling (can't say enough great things about Steve), as well as Raj and some fun ones with Henry. Raj spent a bunch of time with Dan and they geeked out on tech much of the day.
Fast forward to our event at E3 and we did something pretty damn fun - dropping the GT from the ceiling of the Galen Center during our press briefing. This is a big show for us and is proceeded by weeks of prep. Henry was excited to come out and represent the partnership at multiple events that week along with Steve and designers and technicians. (I'm horrible with names but I'll add them when I remember). We had the Focus RS as well at E3, definitely sold some of those that week. So, the Galen is the USC arena we rent every year for our press event. We had to start rehearsing Thursday for the show Monday morning. Henry joined us Saturday and experienced the yearly ritual of hanging out in the men's locker room for two and a half days (our ready room as we are locked out to avoid seeing all the announcements). What a great guy. Super easy to hang out with. Doesn't need or expect special treatment. We would stroll down and have burgers next to campus during breaks. One thing I thought was amusing was Henry showed up in a VW Jetta or Passat, it was a rental. I teased him and he said travel was a great opportunity to jump into a competitors car and really experience what they were doing first hand. This kind of sums up Henry.
Steve Ling was tireless during the show. We had record heat and Ford had rented out space outside for the cars to be in a tent (The GT had been moved from the briefing to the showfloor next to the game). Steve was out there with his team sweating it out and then running in to do press interviews when needed.
Anyway. Much more I could write but I'll save it for over cocktails sometime when our paths cross. Really has been a great and long lasting partnership.
