Ladies and Gentlemen (and those about to have the operation):
Say hello to the new GTO Squalo, with its 4.0-liter quad-cam 12-cylinder engine:
And if you think it resembles a certain model of 1960s-era Ferrari, you may be permitted to do so.
Here’s the story, as well as more pictures.
Boy, they nailed it with this one. I feel a disturbance in my shorts.
If they really want to give a retro feel, dispense with the numb feeling electric power steering that every modern car gets and go back to rack-and-pinion. I have not driven a car with decent feel to the steering since my wife’s Saab was destroyed in a pile-up on the highway. That includes the BMW that replaced it (because GM had killed Saab at that point).
With a target weight of 1KT, unassisted R&P would be a No-Brainer.
They left out the price. Which means, of course: Beware! Sticker shock ahead!
BTW, Kim “Ladies and Gentlemen (and those about to have the operation):” earned my best laugh so far today.
If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.
– some previous Turn of the Century banker.
Squalo is shark in Eye-talian, as you may know. I wonder about these boutique builders sustainability, but it won’t be my problem. Squalo is also slang for an unscrupulous businessman, as it is in English, so be careful.
I am amazed that people have the resources to even contemplate the manufacture of a vehicle, and with their own engine, to boot. More power to them, to coin a phrase.
GTO Engineering has been around for over 20 years, I’ve never heard anyone claim they’re unscrupulous. Their work has always been of the highest quality, whether just “run of the mill” repairs, or Concours-quality restorations.
Does it come in red?
It will come in any color you prefer – perhaps the shade of your companion’s favorite lip-stick (I knew a Ferrari owner who repainted a Daytona Spider – one of the real ones – to match his wife’s favorite shade, then gave her the car. You may have seen it before the repaint – it was in some movie about a rally: Had a sticky name that escapes me).
Looks like the offspring of a Lusso and a GTO that spent a night in the Abarth Motel.
And nothing strange about the name. Scuderia Ferrari used the Squalo/Super Squalo name for their ’54 & ’55 F1 cars.
I’ve been contemplating this car for a couple of days now:
1. The only design feature I don’t like are the brake heat vents on the rear quarter panels. I will forgive if they are functional and necessary.
2. The only wheels suitable for this car wire wheels.
3. Did anyone notice the Alfa Romeoesque “Dan Gurney*” bumps in the roof? These are very reminiscent of the famous Bat Cars.
4. Finally, for many years I had noticed that the automobile engines which were most praised for their smoothness and generally good driving qualities were ones like a 2 liter, in-line four cylinder or a 3 liter, inline or boxer six, or the silky smooth 4 liter, V8 from BMW. What these engines shared was a 500 cc per cylinder displacement. I filed that away until I stumbled across an article about the combustion process which claimed that, yes, 500 ccs per jug was about ideal and that the best bore/stroke ratio was slightly under square. The last was counterintuitive to me, but who am I to talk. I’m just an engineer that never dealt with things with moving parts. Anything less than that and you had screamers and if more you got big lugs such as American V8s.
* Dan Gurney, See his Wikipedia page for the full story, was 6’4” way taller than most drivers in F1 GP. Think of nicknames like the Wee-Scot used for both Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark. This caused severe problems for Gurney fitting in race cars. For this the Gurney bump was devised. They can be seen in the Gt40s he raced and in the Daytona Cobras. Sadly my Brother-in-law passed away two weeks ago after my sister’s passing in 2013. Both were lifetime racing fans serving as volunteers for the Washington, DC, region of the SCCA. Among their memorabilia I found a campaign button saying “Gurney for President”.
I say, Kim, do you remember that vid you posted a couple months back of the brit what scraped out the innards of a Testarossa and replaced them with the electro-wizbangery out of a Tesla?
Suppose these GTO Engineering lads were to do that with one of these Squalo jobbies. That right there is the sort of thing that might could move me to consider owning an electric car. (Short of that? forget it.)
They came really, really close, but whats with the 3 nostrils in the hood, and the ugly dent on the roof?