Gillet

Gillet is a Belgian automobile manufacturer from Gembloux, which was founded in 1994 by former racing driver Tony Gillet. The company 's products include the Vertigo sports coupe with a V6 engine from Alfa Romeo.

Background information about the company

Tony Gillet was a successful racing driver. He won the Belgian Hill Climb Championship for several years in a row and took part in two Paris -Dakar rallies. In 1982 he became the Belgian importer for Donkervoort, a Dutch manufacturer of sports cars in the Lotus Seven - style. In January 1990, Tony Gillet broke the record from 0 to 100 km / h for series production vehicles with a time of 3.85 seconds with a specially modified Donkervoort.

The emergence of Vertigo

The first prototype of the " Vertigo" was completed in 1991 and shown in January 1992 at the 71st car show in Brussels. This car had a 2.0 -liter 4- cylinder turbo engine from Cosworth with an output of 220 hp. The force was transmitted to the rear wheels via a manual six -speed gearbox. The first prototypes of the " Gillet Vertigo" were different in materials and design. After the next two years the car was ready for series production.

Two other cars were built before the series production: a second prototype to determine the final design, and the first production car, which was used for the certification, including the frontal crash tests and various resistance tests to the resistance of the seat anchorage and seat belt anchorages to consider.

Serial version

The production-ready Vertigo was shown at the Paris Auto Show and the Geneva Motor Show in 1993. The 3.0-liter V6 engine was from Alfa Romeo and was built among other things, the Alfa Romeo 164. The engine had a power output of 226 hp at 6200 rpm and a maximum torque of 276 Nm at 5000 rpm. The body got more sweeping curves with higher side windows and retractable headlights, so that the exterior design was closer to the first design drawings again.

In the standard version, the chassis is made ​​of a sandwich panel with honeycomb core and a carbon fiber cover skin, a design that is borrowed directly from Formula 1. In addition to safety, a higher strength and stiffness reached to 58 kg lighter than the chassis of the prototype. The curb weight of the motorcycle and cars is due to the lightweight materials used in just 750 kg.

The Vertigo brings his advantage on the track or on the road, especially by its lightweight. Conventional sports car weigh about twice as much. Thus, the Vertigo has a very low power to weight ratio. Although the car with 226 horsepower relatively little power has for a sports car, the power to weight ratio of just 3.2 kg / hp is very low and in the range of a Ferrari 430 or Porsche 911 Turbo.

This first version of Vertigo brought it in about 4.4 seconds from 0 to 100 km / h with a top speed of 250 km / h The " Gillet Vertigo" from 1994 held the record for a long time from 0-100 km / h for series vehicles with 3.2 seconds with a tuned car. This record was then entered in the Guinness Book of World Records, but in 2005, broken by the Bugatti Veyron with only 2.5 seconds for 0-100 km / h.

For the 2002 model year was used in addition to other modifications of the new Alfa Romeo V6 engine with 3.2 liters and 250 hp from the Alfa Romeo 156 GTA.

In January 2008, Gillet introduced the new " Vertigo.5 " before at the Auto Salon in Brussels. This includes characteristics of the Vertigo race car that was used in the 2007 FIA GT racing series. The engine is still Alfa Romeo, but was bored out to 3.8 liters. The power is 350 hp at a curb weight of only 700 kg. This gives a power to weight ratio of about 2 kg / hp in the range of supercars.

A "Vertigo" was sold to Philippe Streiff, a former Formula 1 racing driver, who is disabled after an accident during training rides for the 1989 season. This "Vertigo" was specially converted for Streiff; the vehicle is controlled by a joystick, and is equipped with an automatic transmission.

Motorsport

Gillet is in motorsport with the racing version of the Gillet active, the " Gillet Vertigo Streiff ," which he developed in collaboration with Philippe Streiff. Since 1998, the car is used in the Belcar ( Belgian GT Championship) and FIA GT Championship in the G2 class for non- homologated cars.

The "Vertigo Streiff " was originally developed using a modified version of an Alfa Romeo V6 engine with 3.6 liter displacement and 265 kW ( 360 hp). 2006 Gillet increased the displacement to 4.0 liters. A GT3 version with a national homologation drove briefly in the " Belcar " 2007 season.

In the FIA ​​GT Championship in 2008 Renaud Kuppens drove the " Gillet Vertigo.5 " with a 4.2 -liter V8 engine by Maserati tuned for the Group N specification. Renaud Kuppens said the Maserati engine was developing the same power as the V6 engine from Alfa Romeo, but have more torque.

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