Automobiles Gillet

Gillet is a Belgian car manufacturer from Gembloux founded in 1994 by former racing driver Tony Gillet . The company produces, among other things, the Vertigo Sport Coupé with a V6 engine from Alfa Romeo .

Background information about the company

Tony Gillet was a successful racing driver. He won the Belgian hillclimb championship in 1979 and 1980 and participated in two Paris-Dakar - rallies part. In 1982 he became the Belgian importer for Donkervoort , a Dutch manufacturer of Lotus Seven- style sports cars . In January 1990 Tony Gillet broke the record from 0 to 100 km / h for series vehicles with a time of 3.85 seconds with a specially modified Donkervoort.

The origin of the vertigo

The first prototype of the "Vertigo" was completed in 1991 and shown in January 1992 at the 71st Auto Show in Brussels. This car still had a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder turbo engine from Cosworth with an output of 220 hp. The power was transmitted to the rear wheels via a manual 6-speed gearbox. The first prototypes of the "Gillet Vertigo" were still different in terms of material and design. After the next two years, the car was ready for series production.

Two more cars were built before series production: a second prototype to determine the final design and the first production vehicle used for certification, including frontal crash tests and various resistance tests to determine the resistance of the seat anchoring and the anchoring of the seat belts to consider.

Serial version

1994 Gillet Vertigo Mk 1

The production-ready Vertigo was shown at the Paris Auto Show and Geneva Motor Show in 1993. The 3.0-liter V6 engine came from Alfa Romeo and was also installed in the Alfa Romeo 164 , among others . The engine had an output of 226 hp at 6200 rpm and a maximum torque of 276 Nm at 5000 rpm. The body got more curved curves with higher side windows and extendable headlights, so that the outer design was closer to the first construction drawings.

In the series version, the chassis is made as a sandwich panel with a honeycomb core and a CFRP top skin, a construction that is borrowed directly from Formula 1 . In addition to safety, greater strength and rigidity, a weight saving of 58 kg was achieved compared to the chassis of the prototype. The empty weight of the ready-to-drive car is only 750 kg thanks to the lightweight materials used.

The Vertigo gets its advantage on the racetrack or on the road mainly through its lightweight. Conventional sports cars weigh about twice as much. Thus the Vertigo has a very low power to weight ratio . Although the car with 226 HP has relatively little power for a sports car, the power to weight ratio of only 3.2 kg / HP is very low and in the range of a Ferrari 430 or Porsche 911 Turbo .

1994 Gillet Vertigo Mk 1

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

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

In January 2008, Gillet presented the new "Vertigo.5" at the Brussels Motor Show. This contains features from the Vertigo racing car that was used in the 2007 FIA GT racing series. The engine is still from Alfa Romeo, but has been drilled out to 3.8 liters. The power is 350 HP with an empty weight of only 700 kg. This results in a power-to-weight ratio of around 2 kg / hp in the field of super sports cars .

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

Motorsport

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

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

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

Individual evidence

1. ↑ L'histoire de la Course de côte en Belgique ( French ) Royal Automobile Club Belgium. Archived from the original on July 13, 2015. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 15, 2015. 

Web links

• Official homepage of Gillet Vertigo