Composites-intensive Squalo sports car to incorporate three-piece monocoque design

The goal being pursued by GTO Engineering (Twyford, U.K.) is to develop a sports car that weighs less than 1,000 kilograms. To this end, its engineers have been working with those at Dexet Technologies (London, U.K.), a composites design and engineering consultancy to develop a three-piece monocoque design for car named Squalo (“shark” in Italian).

The monocoque pieces comprise the forward section for the V12 engine and manual transmission, a central section for the interior and the fuel tank and the rear subsection, which supports the rear suspension as well as a differential. All three pieces will be bolted together.

Currently, with the exception of an interior buck — which consists of 3D-printed polymers and pieces of wood (yes, like something you’d find on a shelf at Home Depot) — the Squalo monocoque is a CAD rendering. GTO Engineering and Dexet personnel note that they are going to continue development in the virtual world, running finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics on the chassis models before building it in the real world.

When they do build it, though, the companies will be incorporating composites. When asked for specifics, GTO Engineering engineers told CW, “Material selection is awaiting full analysis of the strength, stiffness, mass and thermal management requirement.” So more math. Then physical material.