Hang Time 27

interior shot of 24 firefox. I'm pretty sure this is the factory interior setup.

According to NADA: (plus what I've learned)

Cigarette 24' --- 1971 thru 1987. (They do not detail when the 24 became the Firefox design - I thought it was 86 and 87 only. I've seen the early 70's 24's with twin I-6's and Volvo drives. They even had large wood inlay on bow and very tall windsheild. Mid 70's thru 80's looked like the brochure above until Firefox was built.)

Squadron XII 24' --- 1981 - 1982 (Not sure they ever really made them. They had borchures made, but still used a picture of the 27'er in the brochure.)

Squadron XII 27' --- 1981 - 1982 (Don merged Squadron XII into Cigarette by 1982.

Cigarette 27' --- 1983 only. (Squadron name was dropped, see above)

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Comanche3Six

Wow! Sounds like you guys needed someone who doesn't know what he is doing like me. Val Jenkins recommended a 21" X dimension for the #3SSM and thats where we put it. I assembled the 522 CI supercharged engine and Tom Huber did the transmission. The boat is heavy duty old school Cigarette construction and will give a flawless ride to 82 MPH. I know thats not considered fast, but in 2 to 3 foot waves it is very enjoyable.

GLH

Tons of pics of 24's here thanks to Sean

http://www.thunderboatalley.com/gallery/album12

Every nook and cranny of this ride

Hang Time 27

Sounds like a sweet setup! What kind of Horsepower do you think your making? 3a drive I presume?? I'm trying to evaluate drive choices....

Hang Time 27

A pick of that 2001 24'er

Comanche3Six

Thank You. The engine was not dyno'ed so I can't quote power figures, but it idles at 900 rpm, and rips to 5000 rpm without a single hiccup. No oil leaks or any weird noises. I broke two tranmissions before I went to Tom Huber and bought his overkill Kryptonite model and never looked back. Worth every penny! The drive is a #3SSM, never had a problem. The Cigarette Firefox is probably a 30 year boat, properly taken care of. I have owned mine for almost 18 years and it is as solid as the day I picked it up at the factory. That is a quality boat.
Now that I am thinking about it, I know a original owner of a 1977 20' Cigarette from Rumson, NJ and it is still in immaculate original condition. So I don't know how long these Cigarettes will last when they are properly taken care of.
Quality pays it doesn't cost.

Top Banana

I might be able to shed a little light on the subject of the 24 foot boat. Don sold me the molds for the 24 in 1976 and I designed a deck to look like the 28SS and began banana boat co.

At that time Don owned both Cigarette and Magnum. He had me bring all my workers down from RI to learn how to make boats at the Cigarette factory using the same layup schedules and wiring and plumbing setups.

The first 24 banana boat was a race boat that Don rigged for me at Magnum with Danny Durrough supervising the work. He obtained two 350 engines built by Stan Irwin of Miami with TRS drives. The boat ran as a Modified boat in APBA that year having a very successful season and completing it with a win at Key West in November.

That 24 foot race boat would only run about 88 or 89 before it began to chine walk. You could only let it do it a few times and then had to catch it before it rolled over. We used major tab input but even that didn't help that much.

I raced these 24 foot banana boats over the next few years in single outdrive, single outboard, and twin outboard setups and always found them to be tremendously seaworthy in big ocean water. In those days our race courses ran to the Bahamas and back and out to Dry Tortugas from Key West, so we had plenty of water to test our opinions.

Don bought a blank hull from me in 1979 to use as a plug for a new 24 that he was going to build. He also split one in half and made a cat for Squadron XII with twin outboards that ran 100.

I still have the sixth 24foot banana that I ever built in 1976. Number 6 has a single 280 TRS and is in great shape. I even won a race in Gloucester with it back in 1977. The layup we used back then was really very strong. Don told me once he built over 1200 boats with that layup schedule and never had a hull failure.

I also have two 1970's Cigarettes that are as good now as the day they were made.

A 1977 Cigarette 28SS with twin 280's and TRS's and

a 1974 Cigarette 35 foot race boat that was also the sixth 35 footer made by Don. Number 6 originally was Spirit raced by Hal Sahlman and then Rocky Aoki raced it as Benihana. This boat won the Miami Nassau race two times.

My son and I are going to totally restore the 35 foot race boat back to the original spec's. The hull and deck and all the bulkheads are in great shape, as Commanche said, Quality pays it doesn't cost.

Charlie McCarthy

apache21

It's a copy not the real thing.

apache21

I found these pics

heatbuzz

24 cig.....24 Banana