Many cars these days use digital displays to augment or replace analog gauges, and the Ford GT supercar is one of them. Sitting behind its steering wheel, the driver is greeted not by a round speedometer and tachometer, but by an expanse of screen.
The GT uses a 10-inch reconfigurable digital display that includes five modes: Normal, Wet, Sport, Track, and V-Max. Each mode prioritizes different information based on driving conditions, and the driver toggles between them using controls on the steering wheel. Ford says the display will eventually make its way into other production models.
The display itself was designed in concert with Conjure, which handled graphical design, and Pektron, which was responsible for the design of the electronics. Ford says it even asked racing driver Scott Maxwell for some feedback. Maxwell works for Multimatic, the Canadian motor sports firm charged with actually building the GT.
The display’s Normal mode is pretty, well, normal, with a center speedometer flanked by readouts for gear selection, fuel, and temperature, and a tachometer. Wet mode is essentially the same, but with a different design that includes graphics emulating the look of wet asphalt. Sport mode puts gear selection front and center, moving the speedometer off to the right.
Track mode switches the coloring of text and graphics from Sport mode’s orange to red, which Ford says its easier to read at a glance. In this mode, both gear selection and the tachometer get the most prominent placement, and fuel level is rendered in a percentage, rather than the amount left until empty. V-Max mode is meant for achieving the car’s top speed, so it places the speedometer back in the middle, with the tachometer barely visible and all other readouts pushed off to the side. Incidentally, an image released by Ford shows a readout of 216 mph, indicating that may be the GT’s top speed.
Ford is just now beginning GT deliveries. It will build 500 cars for the first two years of production, and an unspecified amount for a second, two-year production period. If aren’t lucky enough to get a GT, you may at least find its dashboard display in a less-exotic future Ford model. Ford says it plans to use the tech in other vehicles, although it won’t discuss a timeline for that.
