KerbalX

The Cheetah is the latest in the line of record breaking hypercars. It uses the same aerodynamic method as the 2018 Apex which I’ve now come up with an acronym for. A.L.T. (Active Load Transferring) you probably already know how it works but if not here is a quick refresh. Under normal conditions the car produces an equal amount of downforce for the front and rear. When braking occurs, downforce in the rear is greatly decreased and in the front downforce is increased exponentially. This moves the car’s pivot point from the center towards the front by forcing more weight on the front wheels, giving them more grip while removing grip from the rear. This means you can greatly increase the cars turn-in at will when you need to get through a tight corner as fast as possible. With the 2018 Apex doing this can be intimidating at times and one goal I had with the Cheetah was to make it easier to drive and more approachable. However, I didn’t realize just how effective A.L.T. was until I made the B-32 TF. After becoming the second fastest car around the test track It proved that a car could make more compromises to performance in favor of looks and still be fast. Because of this the Cheetah is my First car intended to break the test track lap record that produces any lift. I’ve always liked how large sloping rear fenders look on mid engined cars and A.L.T. allowed me to do it on the Cheetah without feeling I was sacrificing a small bit of performance that could be crucial to breaking the record. Now on to what makes this car special and what helped it break the record. First of all, beating the Apex’s lap time wasn’t easy. While the 1.4 update has made most of my vehicles significantly slower, it somehow made the Apex faster. So instead of having to beat a 39 second lap, which is already crazy fast, I had to beat a 36 second lap. When lap times are in the 30 second range 3 seconds makes a big difference and the cheetah had to be that much quicker. The number one thing I focused on with this car was downforce and grip. At 150 mph the Cheetah generates over 30% more downforce than the Apex and creates almost twice as much aerodynamic force when braking at that speed. This makes the Cheetah a much more trustworthy car and the number one characteristic you’ll notice is the braking. It just stops at an alarming rate like no other car I’ve built. Credit for the magnificent braking can be given to the fact that the Cheetah possess far more control surfaces dedicated to stopping the car than any other vehicle I’ve made. Additional grip and better braking allow you to spend less time stopping or being overly cautious from fear of crashing. If your still intimidated by the speed, you can limit the car’s power so that only eight of the fourteen junos are activated. This is without a doubt my new favorite car and I expect its lap record will stand for quite some time. Until the 2018 G-force shows up. ;-)

Specs

Max Power: 261 kN

Top Speed: 123 m/s/275.2 mph/442.8 kph

Downforce at 150 mph: 246.3 kN

Max Downforce: 548.8 kN

Max Aero Braking Force: 1,272.4 kN

0-400-0 kph Time: 26 seconds

Action Groups

[1] Toggle headlights

[2] Toggle power limiting mode

Test Track Lap Times

Cheetah 0:35
2018 Apex 0:36
B-32 TF 0:41
2018 Hyper 0:42
G-force 2.0 LM 0:42
2018 Synergy 0:43
B19 0:43
Destiny 0:45
Formula 1 car 0:45
Bolt 0:46
B-34 0:47
G-force 2.0 0:47
B-27 0:48
B-32 0:50
B-31 R 0:50

985 B1 0:52
Apex SFE 0:53
2018 Formula 1 car 0:54
B-31 0:56
B-26 1:00
Righello 1:02
IndyCar 1:06
LMP1 1:09
G-force 1:11
Apex 1:16
BSB-1 1:23
2020 Tesla Roadster 1:24
Badger 1:31
PT-1 1:58
BGT 1 2:03