A love story, yes, but first and foremost a car movie. With A Man and a Woman, Claude Lelouch delivers in 1966 a tale of widowers rebuilding their lives… driven by a rally Ford Mustang, a GT40 from Ford France, and some of the most beautiful road and circuit images ever captured in French cinema.
A minimal script, a race car driver at the heart of the story
Anne is a script girl, the widow of a stuntman. Jean-Louis is a race car driver, also a widower. They each raise a child, whom they drop off every Sunday evening at a boarding school in Deauville. One day, Anne misses her train. The headmistress offers her a ride back to Paris with another parent: Jean-Louis, who is driving.
The rest is a series of back-and-forth trips between Paris, Deauville, the circuits, and the service parks. Lelouch doesn’t just film a meeting; he captures the life of a professional driver in the mid-60s: tests, Monte-Carlo rally, circuit tuning, seaside sequences… with the ever-present risk of racing in the background. Ford France provides the production with several cars, including two Mustangs and a Ford GT40 Mk1, chassis P/1007.
From the outset, the automobile is not just a backdrop. It is the hero’s profession, his identity, which casts a permanent shadow over his romantic future. And Lelouch will rely on three major “mechanical characters”: the Paris-Deauville road, the Mustang No. 184 from Monte-Carlo, and the Ford GT40 from Ford France on the Montlhéry oval.
The Mustang 184: the star of Monte-Carlo and the film
In the imagination of enthusiasts, A Man and a Woman is primarily about a Mustang attacking Monte-Carlo in the snow, adorned with the number 184 and the colors of Ford France. This car is not just a simple movie “prop”: it is a real rally car.
The Mustang 184 is entered in the 11th Rally Monte-Carlo 1966 by the Ford France team, with Henri Greder and Martial Delalande at the wheel. The same car, the same livery, the same number for the filming, Lelouch takes advantage of the car’s presence in the race to shoot authentic footage, onboard camera, snowy roads, period assistance. A few additional shots are filmed outside of the special stages, but the DNA is that of the real Monte-Carlo.
Technically, we are looking at a mid-60s V8 Mustang (4.7 L, type 289 ci), prepared for rallying: reinforced body, adapted suspensions, navigation equipment, additional headlights. The image is striking: the American pony car, a symbol of raw power, confronted with the narrow, slippery roads of the Alps. Where many films cobble together racing sequences in studios, A Man and a Woman sticks to the reality of an official Ford program.
The original Mustang 184 has disappeared – like most of the Ford France Mustangs of the time – but its image continues to live on through miniatures, replicas, and specialized articles. Enthusiasts have even recreated a 184 “Monte-Carlo spec,” with exact livery, roll cage, instrumentation, and period Cibié headlights, specifically designed as a tribute to the film and Ford France.
The Ford GT40 P/1007: the Ford France weapon that passed through cinema
While the Mustang 184 sets the rally tone of the film, the most mythical car associated with A Man and a Woman remains the Ford GT40 Mk1 chassis P/1007. And here, we clearly change universes: from the rally GT to the war machine designed for Le Mans.
The GT40 program was born in the early 60s to allow Ford to beat Ferrari at Le Mans; the GT40s would ultimately win the event from 1966 to 1969. Chassis P/1007 is the second unit delivered to Ford France, completed on August 28, 1965, in a cream white livery with a wide dark blue stripe bordered by red lines: the famous colors of Ford France.
Before becoming a racing weapon, P/1007 first toured the auto shows (Monza, Paris). Then Lelouch uses it for a sequence in A Man and a Woman, in the hands of Jean-Louis Trintignant, who is himself the nephew of driver Maurice Trintignant. The car is already a true competition vehicle: tubular chassis, low body height of 1.02 m, rear mid-mounted V8 engine, over 300 hp, 5-speed manual gearbox. A technical sheet that, for the time, borders on science fiction.
In 1966, P/1007 gets serious: 1000 km of Monza, Targa Florio, 1000 km from Paris to Montlhéry, 24 Hours of Le Mans under the colors of Ford France, with drivers like Guy Ligier, Jo Schlesser, or Henri Greder throughout the season. It achieves several notable results, including victories at Montlhéry, before crashing violently at the 1000 km of Paris and being rebuilt. Later, it will join Pierre Bardinon’s collection, then the very exclusive sphere of the most sought-after historical GT40s.
A notable feature: unlike the Mustangs from the film, the GT40 P/1007 has survived. It still exists, with its certified Ford France history and its on-screen appearance as a mythological bonus.
Montlhéry: the oval that magnifies the GT40
It is impossible to talk about the film’s GT40 without mentioning its most spectacular playground: the Linas-Montlhéry Autodrome. Inaugurated in 1924 south of Paris, the site includes a 2.5 km high-banked speed oval and a winding road course through the woods. From the 20s to the 30s, the track becomes a record laboratory: up to 86% of world endurance records are broken there between 1925 and 1939.
For a director, it is hard to dream of a better setting than a concrete oval with parabolic curves, designed to aim for over 200 km/h at the top of the banked track. The GT40 P/1007 raced “for real” there, notably winning the Paris Cup and the Salon Cup, before crashing at the 1000 km of Paris in 1966.
In 2020, the Autodrome even organized an explicit tribute to the film, with a Mustang and a GT40 racing at full speed on the wet oval, under the watchful eye of Claude Lelouch, who came to reenact the sequence 55 years later. This shows how much the meeting between this circuit and these cars has now become part of French automotive culture.
Road, circuit, rain: Lelouch’s way of filming cars
What stands out when rewatching A Man and a Woman is the way Lelouch films the mechanics. No excessive cutting or clipped editing: he lets the car live within the frame.
- On the road, the Mustang becomes a true rolling lounge: we see hands on the steering wheel, the gear lever, the windshield wiped by the rain, the kilometers passing on wet national roads.
- In rallying, the onboard camera captures the body movements, the weight of the V8, the trajectory corrections on the snow.
- On the circuit, the GT40 sticks to the concrete of Montlhéry, with long enough shots to feel the speed, the centrifugal force, the roar of the V8 echoing in the empty stands.
The music of Francis Lai, ever-present, never drowns out the sound of the engines; it overlays the mechanics rather than replacing them. And because Jean-Louis is a professional driver, each sequence involving a car also tells something about his state of mind: confidence, risk-taking, fatigue after a rally, tension before a start.
A key film for French automotive culture
Nearly sixty years later, A Man and a Woman remains an important milestone for anyone interested in the history of the automobile in France:
- it documents the presence of Ford France in competition during the 60s, between rally Mustangs and circuit GT40s;
- it showcases the Montlhéry Autodrome in action, while it is now mostly used for historical events and UTAC tests;
- it has helped to nurture the myth of the GT40 and the Mustang in France, long before the posters of Le Mans 66 or modern video games.
It is also one of the few French films where automotive passion is not caricatured: we see cars engaged in real rallies, a real circuit, and a driver for whom racing is neither a gimmick nor a simple backdrop, but a profession with all the risks, obsessions, and contradictions it entails.
For a car enthusiast, A Man and a Woman is therefore more than a classic film: it is a precious archival piece on the era of Ford France, the Mustang 184, the GT40 P/1007, and the Montlhéry Autodrome. A film to be revisited not only for its dialogues and music but for what it concretely says about racing and the cars that marked that decade.
