Modern Ferrari 250 GTO’s Interior Is Ready For Abuse

Ever sit in your car and think about how much effort it took to get it to where it is now? Let’s use the Ferrari 812 Superfast as an example. Someone at Ferrari had to decide how far away from the wheel the column-mounted paddles should be. Or what angle the pedals should sit at. That person also had to decide where the seats should be mounted, and how low drivers of different heights would sit. Dozens of little details make Ferrari’s modern interpretation of the 250 GTO what it is.

GTO Engineering is about to go through the same process with their modern interpretation of a 250 GTO, called the “Squalo.” The UK-based tuning house recently took delivery of their interior buck. For those out of the know on all things auto manufacturing, it’s basically a life-size model that will allow designers to test any of the above specifications and more.

Nowadays, many manufacturers use computer design to plot out those things, but GTO is known for doing things the old-fashioned way. After all, the Squalo won’t even use modern direct injection in its revamped 460-hp Ferrari “Columbo” V12 engine. That, as an aside, is a truly absurd amount of power for a carbureted engine. The Ferrari Roma barely crests 600 hp with its twin-turbo, modern V8.

As for the interior buck, GTO’s founder, Mark Lyon said “there seems to be a perfect recipe for an engaging driver’s car. It’s not just to do with the engine, suspension, gearbox or brakes – a large part of it is how it feels from the cabin… Specifically from the driver’s seat.” The buck will be used to finalize all of those things.

GTO plans to have drivers of varying heights use the buck to provide feedback on everything from the seating position to the height of the gated manual gearbox’s shifter. GTO says the team ranges from 5’3″ to over 6’3″, ensuring just about everyone shorter than Shaq will be able to fit in their retro supercar.

GTO Engineering says the buck is made from both wood and “additive manufactured polymers.” To us, that sounds like the large majority of it is 3D-printed plastic. Aside from renderings, we haven’t gotten a real look at the Squalo’s interior until now. Pending any changes, we can see that it’ll largely maintain the layout of the original 250 GTO. The center gauges have been reduced to three for now, but the high shifter remains, as well as the large-diameter wheel.

It remains to be seen just how modernized the Squalo’s interior will become. For all we know, those could be digital gauges in the center of the buck’s dash. However, we doubt it. GTO Engineering has a habit of keeping things just old enough to be cool, and just modern enough to work.