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In the early 1960’s, the world-spanning General Motors suddenly found its motorsports division playing second fiddle to that of crosstown rival Ford. The iconic Shelby Cobra, powered by a Ford V8, was tearing up the track and the streets and GM didn’t have an answer…at least until Bill Thomas came up with the Cheetah. Just a handful of these famous cars were produced, and owning an original will cost you more than most people make in a decade.
But in 2008 a small run of Cheetah continuation models were built and sold, true to the original and Autoblog reports that not one, but two of these rare reborn Cheetahs has made its way on to eBay.
The Bill Thomas Cheetah Continuation models straddle the line between replica and real, being built using in much the same way, using many of the same parts to recreate a famous car that far too few people have gotten a chance to enjoy. Just 31 of these continuation models were completed before the economy tanked, making them rare cars in and of themselves.
Of the two for sale, one is a coupe powered by a 383 Chevy stroker and backed by a Muncie 4-speed transmission, which stays as true to the original as possible (the original Cheetah had a 377 cubic-inch engine tuned by Thomas himself.) The convertible, however, is a bad ass wild ride, packing a 502 cubic-inch big block Chevy and tipping the scales at just over 1,700 pounds…most of that the engine and transmission. Despite being bad ass replicas, either car could be had for a very reasonable price on eBay. So which Cheetah would you prefer, big block droptop or small block coupe?
