In the past, Ferrari’s civil service has been known to be arrogant in dealing with unauthorized specialists, and even today the parties are careful about how they deal with each other. But you can certainly feel a softening of attitude on the Italian side, if only because GTO is such a handy source of extremely rare parts and beautifully remanufactured forged front suspension, for example. Ferrari Classiche buys from GTO, but always through a third party.
But what about the future? Even the donor Ferrari V12 supply is soon to run out, not least because these cars acquire their own rarity value. Lyon is already 18 months into a second new plan, even more daring than the first. He wants GTO to build its own classic Ferrari-like car called the Squalo (see right), charge £ 1.5million per copy and market it in 2023.
As we return to the GTO engine building shop, Lyon casually lifts the cover of a Testa Rossa engine, showing how incredibly compact it is, even in modern terms. It also weighs just 180kg, he says, which again compares pretty well with most of the later units.
One thing that strikes me about this extraordinary place, so completely filled with past achievements and future potential, is the modesty with which its founder displays its many facets. I am moved to remark on the fact: “You don’t brag much, Mark, do you?” He looks at me as if I had lost my marbles and replies: “What is it for?”
GTO’s first custom car
“The idea for Squalo came to me at a motor show in Riyadh in October 2019,” explains Mark Lyon, the boss of GTO Engineering. “We were looking at a Porsche Singer and suddenly I thought we had to do something similar. So on the first lockdown we got serious.
The Squalo is not a Ferrari, but it is heavily influenced by the beloved Colombo V12 cars from Lyon. An anonymous London-based designer produced what looks like an updated 250 SWB with more modern proportions and much better I / O than an original but using many components from the Colombo era including engines and transmissions, which GTO already manufactures.
It’s a compact two-seater coupe that’s based on a classic old-fashioned Ferrari twin-engine chassis and has a 400-horsepower 4.0-liter V12 in the nose to drive its rear wheels, but it will have a cockpit and trunk. reasonable.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-05-23 05:01:24
