TOPIC:

Well I got this car in a trade a week ago. I just cleaned it, and painted the --incredible- rear custom bumper/cage. I know this car was built and modified early in the 80's by a guy (a old man now, if he's still alive) that is considered the most important static model collector in my country. This guy sold all of his collection about a decade ago. I got this car from a RC enthusiast here that got it in a lot (yeah, all of the first Porsches were there. You'd have to see that to believe it!).

Anyway, the original owner got two kits and extra parts to make this thing go 4x4. Back in the early 80's was not at all as easy as it is today to get parts to customize your cars so I can see he did what he could with whatever he had around. Now, for some people this might seem a serious lot of ingenuity. For me, even knowing what this would have been back in the day... it seems more an atrocity. Such a fantastic vintage gem brutalized this way. For heaven's sake, what a sacrilege!

And although I am not at all excited about the 4x4 mod, I am absolutely in love with the custom rear bumper/cage. That thing kept all of the orig Cheetah stuff in its place for about 40 years. What a fantastic work. I painted it to match as I could the model as it was bare metal.

About the condition. Only the tires are fresh new. I can see the chassis has been modified in many ways. I can not identify clearly what's original and what is not, except for the ugly metal parts, but also some parts were placed in different ways. And the bodyshell has got the floors removed, so that's missing, as well as the seats and driver. All of the other important bits are there, mirrors, shovels, etcetera.

Would be nice if Larbut would re-upload the bodyparts manual, so I can finally go learning what goes where, and what do I have to do. If you guys have any idea or comment, please let me know. By now it seems to me I would need a whole beat up car as a donor, but that is pretty much out of the picture for me nowadays.

Pictures will be uploaded asap.

You all have a good week!

The 1978 Lamborghini Cheetah bodyshell:













Chassis next

Here it is fellow TBers, the infamous 4x4 Cheetah chassis:













Any comments or ideas just let me know.

4X4?????


THE CHASSIS OF THE XR311 IS THE SAME THAT THE CHEETAH?



www.ebay.es/itm...ESRLKuzM0A

Tamiya wrote:

4X4?????


THE CHASSIS OF THE XR311 IS THE SAME THAT THE CHEETAH?

Así es. Ambos modelos comparten exactamente el mismo chassis. Sólo las ruedas y neumáticos cambian. A todo esto intentaré usar los neumáticos extras que me dieron en ruedas de Sand Scorcher como lo habéis hecho en vuestro espléndido Sand Rover celeste.

The UTILIZATION OF THE TIRES IN A SCORCHER IS A GREAT IDEA

I'm using orig XR-311 on my Frog. But that belongs to another thread

Intriguing ... so it's basically a 2nd gearbox put on the front ... shame the propshaft would run where the battery is supposed to go, meaning you'd never get the body on with a battery in there. I'm struggling to visualise whether the output of the rear gearbox & the input on the front run in complementary directions - I have visions of the front turning clockwise, the rear counterclockwise & it spinning its wheels on the spot, much like when the rear axle on a CC-01 is fitted upside down


On the plus side, you have a complete body there, that is exceptionally rare for a used Cheetah

The vintage XR311 shares the chassis with the Cheetah (apart from the wheels & tyres) but is slightly shorter (I think- it's been a long while since I worked on one) so the front suspension torsion bars are shorter too. The re-release XR311 (c 2000?) and the re-re-release (more recent) are subtly different, so some parts are interchangeable, but a lot aren't (like the suspension torsion bars & their fittings on the wishbones). The fasteners are also properly metric, whereas they're not quite on the vintage cars.

I don't see modifications like those found on your Cheetah as sacrilege at all - whether it's worth reinstating/completing the former owners work is another question ... I think I'd look for another Cheetah (or XR311) with a good chassis but a poor body and make one good car. Parts supply is problematic, I think I had a total of 5 cars to make one fairly original XR311 and two good Cheetahs - although they were hardly original They were both so trashed/incomplete that they were never, ever going to be as Tamiya intended, at least that's how I justify the red one, the bile green one, that's harder

Wasn't the cheetah lambo lm01 the hummer's father???+ or the idea?

was the Cheetah the Hummers father..........??
Well yes..... and no.... I use to be quite interested in the XR311 as I always thought if I was going to own a military vehicle of some sort that would be a good one, far easier to deal with than a tank or something armored...ah dreams I followed along on a site years ago while some guy restored one in the US and they do still pop up from time to time, Last time I looked there was one for sale in Ohio or something.
Wikipedia has a page on them and the Cheetah too but the info seems to contradict each other a bit. But from what I remember back when I was chasing information on them. The US army was looking to replace the jeeps and 151 mutts and put out a spec for a new scout vehicle. About 1970 or so FMC company contracted a fabrication shop do build some prototypes based on some off road buggy ideas. From what I have read there were upwards of 35 xr311's made in different configurations for testing over several years before they dropped the idea in favor of AM General ( AMC, the jeep guys) later design that became the Hummer we know today.
The Cheetah design was also contracted to a buggy fabrication shop in California and only one prototype was made with some badges supplied by Lamborghini. They had the same layout and even used the same Chrysler engines and transmissions, they were so much the same that there was a lawsuit by FMC against the builders of the Cheetah. It is sort of correct that the Tamiya models share the same chassis, the real ones did too!!
There was only one Cheetah and the army never did test it, it was sold to another company and rumored to have been destroyed while test driving it in the desert. Although a few years ago I heard a story that parts of it still exist ......A few years later Lamborghini did build an off roader with a front mounted Lambo V12 the LM002 and it does bear more than a passing resemblance to the Cheetah although much bigger and heavier etc. They really only sold a few to some rich oil sheiks or something like that.
The model looks great and I would also suggest looking for a good replacement chassis for it, the original work that was done to make it 4x4 is very cool indeed, perhaps it should be cleaned up and displayed with the Cheetah as it is.
Thanks for sharing the pictures.