The $4,50,000 street legal supercar, Ford GT is not only visually unique from the outside, but its dashboard is rather more unique. The automaker calls it as ‘the dashboard of the future’

Ford GT dashboard features a 10-inch wide digital instrument display designed to provide information quickly and easily to the driver. The digital cluster will provide information to the driver according to each driving mode.

“Driver focus and attention are key with such high performance,” said Jamal Hameedi, chief engineer, Ford Performance. “We’ve designed the GT with a sleek digital instrument display that changes depending on driving mode in ways that are important and usable to the driver.”

The high-resolution display is designed to provide the most important data to the driver in the most efficient way. The driver needs a different set of data while driving in normal mode, wet mode, sports mode, track mode or v-max mode.  The dashboard of the future reconfigures itself according to the 5 driving modes.

The normal mode is simple with speedometer centred and bold, gear selection is to the right, fuel and temperature are top left. The hockey-stick-shaped tachometer displays in a compressed scale for lower rpm, as the engine revs so quickly the lower counts mean almost nothing to the driver. Wet mode basically carries forward the normal mode look, but graphics under the speedo emulates shine of wet asphalt.

Sport mode gets an orange theme with speedo on the right and front and centre shows gear selection. Track mode gets a black background with text and graphics in crisp red. Gear selection and engine speed are displayed prominently, while gauges like coolant temperature, oil pressure and fuel level – at bottom right. V-Max mode is basically selected to achieve max speed and hence a large speedometer and a reduced tachometer.

Watch this video to get a better understanding of the driving modes in action

Ford designers worked with Conjure for graphical design and Pektron for electrical design, and manufacture. Ford even took feedback from Le Mans winner Scott Maxwell of Multimatic®.

“We spent an enormous amount of time getting this just right,” says Nick Terzes, Ford GT engineering supervisor. “The result is simple, but achieving simple perfectly can be a challenge.”

Ford GT dashboard is expected to be seen on other vehicles from the automaker as well.

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