GM Prez John Gordon’s 1964 Cheetah #002 Prototype For Sale

Bill Thomas was a Chevy Corvette racer in the 1950s and 1960s. When the Shelby Cobra debuted on racetracks across the country, the Corvettes were ceremoniously trounced. Thomas couldn’t abide being so handily beaten, and set out to do something about it. That something would become the Bill Thomas Cheetah.

The Cheetah was conceived and built by Thomas and his fabricator, Don Edmunds. It was powered by a Rochester fuel-injected 327 Chevy Small Block, with a short wheelbase and the engine located so far behind the front axle that it had no driveshaft (more on that later), to achieve a 50/50 weight distribution. The Cheetah was light, powerful, twitchy, dangerous, hot, and intimidating. Thomas pitched the Cheetah to Chevrolet’s Ed Cole, who agreed to lend clandestine support to the project so long as Cheetah was built in small numbers to avoid attention from within GM.

With help from Cole, Thomas began construction. Built in Thomas’ shop in Anaheim, California, the Cheetah had a tube-frame chassis, Corvette suspension, Corvette drivetrain, NASCAR drum brakes, and thin aluminum skin (only the first couple of Cheetahs were aluminum; subsequent cars had fiberglass skin). The doors would flex when opened, and had no exterior door handles. As previously mentioned, the car had the engine located well back in the chassis, so much so it was considered a mid-engine car. The transmission output was connected directly to the rear differential by U-joints.

To call the Cheetah spartan is an exercise in understatement. The engine was so far back in the chassis that the exhaust headers on either side were routed over and around the outside of the foot wells and rearward along the rockers. Without a heat barrier, carpet, or padding to save on weight, this turned the footboxes into riveted aluminum ovens. The dash was an aluminum sheet with a few gauges and controls. Save for a couple of vinyl-covered seats that sat so far back they were between the rear wheels, there was little in the way of interior trim. The gullwing doors had no A-pillar and were flimsy, requiring a stick to hold them open. The twin fiberglass fuel tanks sat sidesaddle, near the exhaust.

The extreme weight savings worked. Whereas a race-ready 289 Cobra tipped the scales at a fuzz over 2,200 pounds, the Cheetah, with its Rochester Dual Meter fuel-injected modified 327 Small Block and Muncie M21 four-speed came in at 1,700 pounds. With the race-prepped 327 producing over 400 horsepower, the Cheetah was not for the faint of heart.

The original Cheetah production goal was 100 units, just enough to qualify for the SCCA homologation minimum. Not long after production began, the SCCA placed the Cheetah in the big-bore C-Sports/C Modified category, where it would be forced to compete against true racing cars like Chaparrals, McLarens, and Lolas, rather than running against more sporting cars like the Cobra. In 1964, the C-Sports/-Modified class rules dictated homologation minimum was to be 1,000 cars. Knowing the Cheetah wouldn’t be able to compete, GM pulled their sponsorship. Shortly after, Bill Thomas’ shop burned to the ground, and the Cheetah was over. Sixteen Cheetahs were built between 1963 and 1965, with eleven believed extant today. A Cheetah was even featured in Elvis Presley’s movie Spinout.

Our feature Cheetah is serial number 12634002, documented as the second prototype. It is one of the aluminum-skinned cars, powered by a fuel-injected 327 Small Block with dual Corvette radiators. It was ordered by General Motors as a development car for Chevrolet Engineering. The Cheetah has some racing history, as it competed at various tracks including Riverside. It was last up for sale in 1969. Included in the sale of the Cheetah is a 154-page book documenting the car’s full history, showing then-GM President John F. Gordon as the first owner, and all the testing done by Chevy Engineering.

This piece of racing history is now offered for sale on Hemmings for $2,000,000.