A Cheetah That Devours Cobras: eBay Find
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Bill Thomas was a successful SoCal Corvette racer who had his own shop making Chevrolets perform better. In 1963, he aroused support from General Motors and outside investors to create a concept vehicle. Working with his fabricator, Don Edmunds, and raiding Chevrolet’s parts bin, they literally sketched out a vehicle and then built it in the hopes that the project would garner them contract work from GM. They named this car “Cheetah.”
An interesting aspect of its design was that the small-block was placed so far back in the chassis that the driver and passenger’s legs would surround the motor and the fabricated headers passed over their legs. This design gave the Cheetah the weight distribution similar to a mid-engine car’s but also created a very hot cabin. However, the main Achilles’ heel was how the Cheetah was developed, as it was initially a proposal for GM and none of the typical reinforcements were implemented. As such, the Cheetah was a handful on the track, even for the most seasoned drivers. However, on the drag strip it was a different story.
As it happened, when GM got out of sanctioned racing, the Cheetah’s survival was compromised. Add a fire in the Cheetah’s factory and Bill Thomas+associates decided to discontinue building the car. However, the legend has always been great enough that certain enterprising individuals have created replicas of this interesting fiberglass racer. This one on eBay is a long-wheelbase 1974 version (on a shortened Corvette chassis) manufactured by Elegant Motors and is stuffed with a 454 big-block. Here’s some other specs of this Cheetah replica:
- Electronic keyless entry
- Gull wing doors
- All-new interior and fresh professional paint job
- 11:1-compression 454
- New high-torque starter
- New intake and Edelbrock 850 dual-line dual-pump carb
- Brand-new Holley electric racing fuel pump
- Five-Speed manual racing tranny
- Heavy-duty racing hydraulic clutch
- Scatter shield with heavy-duty bell housing
- New headers and side pipes
- New radiator with dual-electric cooling fans
- Four-wheel disc brakes
- All-new interior
- Fresh professional paint job
- New Lexan rear window
- Passenger and driver’s door windows included
- New weather stripping
For a cool 100 grand, it can be yours, but why not make an offer to the seller and see what happens?
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It repo Cheetah and not worth $100K.
We have a local company here that can build one as nice or better for less.
I would rather go to Mongoose Motorsports and get one of their Corvette Grand Sports for less. It s a much better package.