Despite the incredible strides he’d made in just a few years, in the early 1960s Corvette chief designer Zora Arkus-Duntov was metaphorically working with one arm tied behind his back.

While he had successfully transformed the Corvette from a lackadaisical cruiser with questionable build quality (that survived the chopping block by the skin of its teeth) into a world-class sports car in just a few short years, the industry-wide AMA ban on direct factory involvement in any motorsport discipline put immovable roadblocks in his way at nearly every turn.

Sure, he’d gotten the Z06 options package out the door to coincide with the launch of the new second generation Corvette in 1963, and that was a step in the right direction. But when he went a step further with the Corvette Grand Sport, a purpose-built racer designed to take on Carroll Shelby in road racing, GM’s brass promptly put the kibosh on the program as soon as they’d gotten wind of it, relegating the Grand Sport light weights to just five examples in total.

Although other manufacturers like Ford were openly ignoring the AMA ban, General Motors was – at the time – sticking to protocol for the most part. Would-be Chevy racers started looking for an alternative solution that would be truly competitive with Shelby’s Cobra, which had proven to be something of a game changer out on the road course.

Southern California native Bill Thomas was no stranger to GM performance, having modified Corvettes for road racing duty at CS Mead Motors and providing engineering services for various Chevrolet performance projects in the late 1950s and early 60s.

In 1963, Thomas would team up with General Motors Performance Product Group head Vince Piggins to clandestinely develop a new concept vehicle. Using the Corvette’s powertrain, suspension, and other major components, the Thomas’ intention was to build a GM sports car that could serve as a Cobra killer, and homologate said vehicle for FIA racing by building at least 100 examples of it. Thus, the Cheetah project was born.

Building A Better Sports Car

There’s no question that Duntov had successfully turned the Corvette into a contender by the time the C2 debuted for the 1963 model year. But despite these strides, it was also clear that the Cobra held intrinsic advantages as a race car, largely due to the fact that Shelby had made virtually no concessions for his roadster to serve as a production road car, while that was indeed the Corvette’s primary purpose. To bring parity between Ford and Chevrolet on the road course, Chevy needed a platform that was just as uncompromising.

Initially, Thomas considered the Cheetah to be more of a design exercise to showcase his talents to General Motors rather than a purpose-built race car, but as the project developed he decided the car needed to compete in order to provide credibility to his team’s design.

Working with fabricator Don Edmunds, Thomas set about designing a vehicle that would be underpinned largely by Corvette componentry. Their approach to design was decidedly less scientific than a major manufacturer’s, as the two famously were said to have simply selected the motor, gearbox, and differential they wanted to use, laid them out on the shop floor, and drew chalk outlines around them to serve as the blueprint for the lower part of the chassis. In similar fashion, the body began as not much more than a napkin sketch.

Once the rolling chassis had been completed, the body was subsequently mocked up using a plywood buck that was then coupled the lower part of the chassis and sent off to California Metal Shaping to have an aluminum body crafted for the car. Two aluminum bodied Cheetahs would ultimately be built, the rest would be constructed of fiberglass.

A significant factor in the Cheetah’s distinctive shape comes from Thomas and Edmund’s desire to get the majority of the car’s bulk to the center of the car in order to optimize weight distribution without restoring to an expensive (and potentially unreliable) transaxle arrangement. The solution was to simply push the front-mounted engine as far back as possible in the chassis – so much so that a driveshaft was unnecessary to connect the transmission with the differential (a U-joint was all that was needed).

Bill Thomas inspects his creation. Note where the engine is installed relative to front of the car and the passenger compartment – it’s easy to see why drivers would report heat exhaustion when piloting these cars during long races. Although some teams installed roof-mounted air ducts to direct cool air into the cockpit, racers like Ralph Salyer simply cut off the roof and turned the car into a roadster. Image: Hemmings

Due its diminutive dimensions and general lack of excess content, the production version of the Cheetah weighed in at just 1500 pounds. Powered by a 375 horsepower version of Chevy’s small block 327 V8, this made for harrowing performance – to put it in perspective, a C7 Corvette Z06 would need more than 900 horsepower to match the Cheetah’s power-to-weight ratio – and the car was said to be capable of exceeding 200 miles per hour. Thomas knew he had a potent sports car on his hands, but the extremes taken in its design would prove to have significant drawbacks as well.

Motorsport

The first fiberglass bodied Cheetah was sold to race driver Ralph Salyer and mechanic Gene Crowe, who quickly proved the Cheetah’s track capability when they took the victory at the at the 1964 SCCA June Sprints in their “Cro-Sal Special.” The team would go on to take home ten more victories in the 1964 and ’65 race seasons.

But the Cheetah’s design proved to be both a blessing and curse. With the motor pushed so far back in the chassis, the engine and its custom exhaust headers were essentially positioned alongside the driver, causing an incredible amount of heat to be transferred into the cockpit. To combat potential heat exhaustion for Sayler, Crowe converted their Cheetah into a roadster.

The fifth, sixth and seventh cars built were ordered by Alan Green Chevrolet. Two of the three were built to race specification, while the third car was one of the first to be configured for public road use, as it was ordered for Green’s wife.

As for the two race cars, one was ordered for racer Jerry Grant to compete in the Challenge Cup at Daytona, but a crash during practice would relegate Green’s team to just one car. Green’s race team made it count though – the No.15 car would go on to compete not only in the United States Road Racing Championship series but FIA events internationally as well, leading to this car becoming the only Cheetah to ever receive the FIA-issued Historic Technical Passport (HTP), which makes this Cheetah eligible for any current FIA-sanctioned vintage event in the world.

Despite some design issues, things looked promising for Thomas’ Cheetah. He and Edmunds continued to churn out examples of the car as the quickest rate they could in hopes of reaching the 100 units required for FIA production homologation. However, during the 1964 season, the FIA increased this requirement ten-fold to a minimum of 1000 models produced, and Chevrolet in turn abandoned support of the Cheetah program.

One of three cars ordered by Alan Green Chevrolet in 1964. Along with one road-going model for Green’s wife, he ordered two race-spec models for his team to compete with. Unfortunately one of the cars ordered would crash during practice for the Challenge Cup at Daytona before ever competing. The other, however, would go on to compete in no less than 60 races over the course of the next year. Image: Hemmings

Though Thomas and Edmunds soldiered on without Chevrolet’s support, a fire at their shop in 1965 would prove to be the final nail in the coffin of Thomas’ dream to bring a viable Cobra killer to market. But regardless of company’s ill fate, the car’s performance prowess was undeniable. Racers all over the country continued to successfully campaign Cheetahs throughout the 1960s and early 70s, several of which would go on to win SCCA Regional championships in the process.

A prototype dubbed the Super Cheetah was also under development when the company closed its doors in 1965. This project was intended to address some of the design issues with the original cars and would incorporate a 4130 chromoly steel space frame after the company received feedback from Chevrolet engineers and racers Bob Bondurant and Jerry Titus, among others. The interior would also widened to improve driver comfort, and significant suspension and steering system revisions were planned as well. Unfortunately, without Chevrolet’s support, the project was never completed.

With input from Chevrolet engineers and racers like Bob Bondurant and Jerry Titus, a “Super Cheetah” project got underway in 1964. The plan was for the new car to address some of the inherent flaws in the original Cheetah design, both in terms of performance and driver comfort. Sadly, due to the one-two punch of Chevrolet backing out of the project and a fire at Thomas’ shop in 1965, the Super Cheetah project was never completed. Image: eBay

Legacy

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how many Cheetahs were made – largely because to best of anyone’s knowledge, Thomas didn’t bother using serial numbers on each vehicle his team built – but most estimates put the figure at 11 completed and sold cars.

Due to their incredible performance and rarity, these original Cheetahs command impressive sums today. And like the original Cobras, this led to continuation cars like the BTM Cheetah, although that run of recently-built Cheetahs was nearly as short-lived as the originals.

Though the Cheetah was denied its chance to really give Carroll Shelby’s Cobra a real run for its money on the world stage, interest in these rare vehicles is as strong as ever. The Cheetah’s wild shape coupled with its equally manic performance ensures that these sports cars will continue to live on in a near-mythic capacity for generations to come.