• Marco Basile’s MARK 00 GT GRANITE is a sports car interior concept built around physical buttons and tactile controls rather than a dashboard dominated by touchscreens.

• Racing inspired details include a compact steering interface, lightweight seats, harnesses and an exposed mechanical gear selector.

• The concept mixes those raw influences with the materials, comfort and visual refinement expected from a road going sports car.

Marco Basile’s MARK 00 GT GRANITE is a sports car interior concept built around physical buttons and tactile controls rather than a dashboard dominated by touchscreens.
Racing inspired details include a compact steering interface, lightweight seats, harnesses and an exposed mechanical gear selector.
The concept mixes those raw influences with the materials, comfort and visual refinement expected from a road going sports car.
Big touchscreens aren't going anywhere, but the humble button is enjoying something of a comeback. Mercedes, Audi, Hyundai and others are all finding new reasons to keep physical controls around, even as their cars become increasingly digital.

Marco Basile's MARK 00 GT GRANITE takes that idea and runs considerably further with it. The young automotive interior designer has imagined a sports car cockpit where screens are pushed firmly into the background and the interesting stuff happens elsewhere.

There are rotary controls to twist, buttons to press, mechanical components to look at and a gear selector that appears to have absolutely no interest in being replaced by a tiny plastic toggle. Basile describes the thinking behind the project rather neatly: “We swapped digital displays for tactile emotion.” That sounds good on paper. More importantly, the interior actually follows through on it.

Marco Basile's MARK 00 GT GRANITE takes that idea and runs considerably further with it.

The young automotive interior designer has imagined a sports car cockpit where screens are pushed firmly into the background and the interesting stuff happens elsewhere. There are rotary controls to twist, buttons to press, mechanical components to look at and a gear selector that appears to have absolutely no interest in being replaced by a tiny plastic toggle.

Basile describes the thinking behind the project rather neatly: “We swapped digital displays for tactile emotion.”

That sounds good on paper. More importantly, the interior actually follows through on it.

The Screen Is No Longer The Main Attraction

MARK 00 isn't technically screen free.

A small display remains in the centre of the dashboard, but compared with the giant tablets now occupying many modern interiors, it almost looks apologetic. That's intentional.

Rather than designing the dashboard around a display, Basile has kept the upper section remarkably open. A slim horizontal structure carries the ventilation system across the cabin, leaving a wide and relatively uninterrupted view through the windscreen.

Basile calls it a Zero Distraction approach.

The result immediately changes the atmosphere of the cockpit. There is less visual mass ahead of the occupants and considerably more attention is drawn toward the steering wheel and centre console.

And those are where most of the fun is hiding.

That Steering Wheel Deserves A Closer Look

The most distinctive part of the MARK 00 interior is probably its steering assembly.

Instead of a conventional instrument cluster sitting behind the wheel, Basile has incorporated two cylindrical modules into the wheel's central structure. Illuminated graphics provide driving information, while large rotary controls sit at either end.

The wheel itself has an open rectangular shape with sections removed from the upper and lower rim. It looks unusual in the finished render, but the sketches reveal just how much work went into getting there. Basile experimented with different rim shapes, instrument positions, control arrangements and central structures before settling on the final design.

Several drawings investigate the cylindrical modules almost as individual products. There is a strong racing influence here. Competition cars have long brought important information and controls as close to the driver's hands as possible. MARK 00 follows the same basic logic, only without looking as though someone removed the dashboard with an angle grinder.

Racing Inspired, But You Could Actually Live With It

That's an important distinction throughout the interior.

There are plenty of details that would feel at home around a racetrack. The controls are clustered around the driver, the seats have a lightweight construction, multi point harnesses are fitted, and the centre console carries a large mechanical gear selector.

Yet the cabin doesn't really look like a racing car.

Basile seems more interested in borrowing the way a racing cockpit works than simply copying the way one looks.

The steering controls are close at hand, but they're housed in beautifully finished cylindrical modules. The seats expose some of their structure, but still have proper padding. Even the harnesses have been incorporated into a seat design that looks like it belongs in a sophisticated sports car rather than something waiting on the grid at Monza.

It is a tricky balance.

Make everything too polished and the racing influence disappears. Go too far in the opposite direction and the driver will start wondering where the helmet holder is.

MARK 00 lands somewhere in between.

There is enough raw mechanical detail to make the cabin feel purposeful, but enough refinement to imagine something similar appearing in a low volume production sports car.

The Gear Selector Isn't Trying To Hide

The shifter is perhaps the clearest example.

Modern electronic transmissions have allowed carmakers to shrink gear selectors into almost anything. A stalk, switch or small button can do the job perfectly well and free up useful space in the process.

Basile clearly wasn't interested in any of that.

MARK 00 has a tall gear selector rising proudly from an exposed metallic mechanism between the seats.

Is something that substantial strictly necessary? Probably not.

Does it make changing gear look considerably more satisfying? Absolutely. And that's really the point.

The selector isn't there because the transmission requires a giant lever. It is there because operating the car is supposed to be part of the experience.

A cylindrical controller and a row of physical buttons sit farther back on the centre console, keeping the whole area compact despite the amount of mechanical detail on display.

The Buttons Don't Make It Look Old

Physical controls are sometimes treated as if they automatically belong to the past, but Basile avoids the obvious retro references.

There are no classic round gauges or rows of vintage toggle switches. Nothing appears to have been borrowed from a 1960s GT and given a new coat of paint.

Instead, the MARK 00 GT GRANITE explores what analog inspired controls could look like if they continued evolving.

The cylindrical instrumentation is probably the best example. It provides some of the visual depth and physical presence missing from a flat display without attempting to imitate a traditional speedometer.

The same applies to the steering controls and centre console.

They are physical, but decidedly contemporary.

That feels particularly relevant at the moment. Several automakers are rediscovering buttons after years of moving functions onto touchscreens, but the more interesting question for designers isn't simply whether buttons should return.

It's what those buttons should look and feel like when they do.

Even The Seats Got The Full Treatment

Basile didn't stop after designing the dashboard.

The seats received their own development process, and the sketches show several studies of the shell, padding, head restraint and harness arrangement.

The finished design uses a thin structural seat with individual padded sections rather than a conventional heavily upholstered bucket. A separate head restraint is mounted to an exposed support, while the multi point harness adds another obvious link to motorsport.

Again, though, it doesn't feel excessively hardcore.

The light upholstery softens the exposed construction, while the shapes are cleaner and more delicate than the equipment normally found inside a competition car.

That relationship between raw and refined appears throughout the interior.

Dark structural elements sit beneath much lighter surfaces. Metallic components draw attention to the mechanical pieces, and red illumination is reserved mostly for controls and instrumentation.

There is plenty to look at without the cockpit becoming visually exhausting.

The Sketches Might Be The Best Part

The finished renders are impressive, but Basile's development sketches arguably make the project more interesting.

They show the idea being worked through rather than simply presented as a finished object.

There are dashboard studies from different viewpoints, experiments with the ventilation system, numerous steering wheel proposals, seat development, centre console sketches and close ups of individual controls.

Some ideas evolve considerably before reaching the final model.

That is particularly useful with a concept like this because several of its details could otherwise be dismissed as render candy. Seeing how the steering wheel, shifter and seats were developed makes it clear that they weren't simply added at the end to make the cabin look more technical.

Basile works across sketching, digital painting, 3D modelling and rendering, and MARK 00 provides a neat demonstration of how those skills connect.

Maybe The Future Isn't Buttons Versus Screens

There is an obvious temptation to turn a project like this into another argument about touchscreens.

MARK 00 is actually more interesting without doing that.

Screens are incredibly useful for navigation, media and the growing number of functions modern cars need to accommodate. Physical buttons are not automatically better either. Fifty poorly organized switches can be just as frustrating as one badly designed touchscreen.

What Basile's project does well is explore the space between those extremes.

It asks what happens when the physical controls themselves become an important part of the automotive interior design again.

And in a sports car, that idea makes particular sense.

Drivers buy these cars partly because interaction matters. The steering, pedals, gearbox and even the sound and movement of mechanical components can contribute to the experience.

Why shouldn't the cockpit controls do the same?

MARK 00 GT GRANITE isn't pretending every trip to the supermarket is a qualifying lap. Nor does it try to turn a modern sports car interior into a museum piece.

Instead, Basile has taken some of the immediacy of a racing cockpit, cleaned up the rough edges and wrapped it in something much more suitable for everyday use.

If physical buttons really are finding their way back into cars, there are certainly worse ways to do it.

Connect with Marco Basile

To explore more of Marco Basile's work, including ongoing projects and portfolio highlights, you can follow or connect with him on the following platforms:

• LinkedIn

• Behance

• Instagram

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