Cheetah

Goins had the car at Road America some ten or so years ago, for the Sept. VSCDA vintage race, as I recall, and it was posed and photographed by a representative of Vintage Motorsport magazine for its "Pick of the Liter" spotlight sidebar. To my disappointment, the magazine then ran a story on another car and the short article on this Cheetah never appeared. Too bad, it would have been nice.

Slightly (very) off topic. here is another Cheetah from a similare era. A kit car produced by Watford Sports Cars Ltd. designed to use ford parts.
As an aside, I own what I believe to be the very same Sprite hardtop shown in the advert.

Edited by Cheetah1172, 12 April 2010 - 22:33.

Yes that's the one. What a shame that they never put it into production. I thing it looks wonderful.

Edited by arttidesco, 22 September 2010 - 17:57.

The latest issue of Automobile Quarterly, Vol. 50 No. 2, has a 12-page article on the Cheetah by Winston Goodfellow.

Perhaps this thread should be merged with the "Cheetah Continuation" thread?

Are you talking about this?



Vauxhall XRV concept car from 1966

The recent AQ Cheetah article "The Real American Graffiti King" by Winston Goodfellow, clears up an issue raised some months ago regarding an under-construction coupe photographed in the Bill Thomas Race Cars shop in '65 or '66 included in an earlier 1981 AQ Cheetah article. The coupe featured a chopped off Kamm-type tail treatment. According to the captioning of a photo of the coupe in the Goodfellow article, it was a prototype of a 427(!!!)-powered Super Cheetah intended to be a high performance GT-type street car.

I thought this car was destroyed in a fire before fully completed. What's its state in the photo?

that's a sweeeeet Car!

reminds me of the other cool GM Concepts,The Holden Car and Vauxhall.. There is two small pics of Holden Midengine Concept in the Camaro Book By Edsall.2008,MBI.

Jose

Greetings to my fellow Cheetah enthusiasts from someone who just discovered this forum. I can trace my enthusiasm for the Cheetah back to my childhood, when a couple of H.O. scale slotcar track manufacturers offered a model of the Cheetah. Have only seen one real Cheetah (Fred Yeakel's "Oil Drop" #8) at the 1994 Monterey Historic Car Races.
Herewith, a little piece of info. re. the history of Vauxhall's 1965 XVR concept, for those who find a certain kinship between it and the Cheetah:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I suspect Hot Wheels' "Twin Mill" model was also inspired by the Vauxhall. Check it, via a web search of images.
Cheers!

Unpainted, missing wheels, but otherwise looks intact and certainly not burned. The article also has an artist's rendering of what the Super Cheetah might have looked like had it gone into production.

Sounds a lot like the small photos in Automobile Qly Vol 19 No 3. You've got that, have you? Is the car in more finished form in the new Goodfellow feature?

Click on the "Cheetah Pot-pourri" link in post #48, above, and it will take you to an on-line copy of the '81 AQ article.
The Super Cheetah pic appears to show the car in substantially the same state of completion as the pic in the most recent AQ article.
With some work you can read the on-line copy of the '81 article. It includes a summary of the fate of the Super Cheetah. It did survive the fire, with some damage.

Edited by Bob Riebe, 23 September 2010 - 22:37.

Edited by Jerry Entin, 03 December 2011 - 22:33.

Are you talking about this?



Vauxhall XRV concept car from 1966

Still looks good 45 years later. Am I imagining it, or was it dark blue originally?

Alan

Bumping this thread, here is what I believe to be a Cheetah ? at Gimli ? Manitoba, Canada   mid '60s. perhaps RA Historian or Jerry, or one of the others from Canada could Identify this one ?

http://forums.wscc.m...roadrace10jpeg/

Michael

It's a little too late to interview Bill Thomas, I found this obituary on-line while looking for pictures of Bad Bascom. A book on the life of Bill Thomas and his many creations would be interesting. His creations showed up regularly in sports car and drag racing magazines of the period, much more prolific than many may realize - Corvairs, Novas, Cheetahs, Camaros . . .

October 21, 2009
by John Gunnell
Chevrolet high-performance legend Bill Thomas, Sr., died on Saturday Oct. 10 in California.

Thomas helped Chevrolet achieve racing superiority and lock in its high-performance reputation.

When the Chevy II arrived, he devised a kit that allowed enthusiasts to readily drop a 327-cid Corvette V-8 into the new Chevy compact. The kit included complete chassis and drive train upgrades to go along with the bigger engine.

Thomas created racing versions of the Corvair, too. In 1962, he built a fuel-injected 327-powered Chevy II for the SCCA Production class at Riverside Raceway. Known as “Bad Bascom’s Ghost,” the car was banned by SCCA and wound up with racer Dickie Harrell, who shoe horned a 427 Z11 V-8 under the hood and called it “Retribution II.” The car was very successful in match racing.

The Cheetah was a street performance and racing car built by Thomas in the early- to mid-’60s to run wheel-to-wheel with Carroll Shelby’s Cobras. The prototype Cheetah was largely the work of a Thomas’ employee named Don Edmunds, but Thomas personally coordinated support for the project. Using his racing connections, Thomas arranged to have Chevrolet provide the car’s major component parts.

When the 1967 Camaro arrived to compete for sales in the “youth market,” the car was capable of accommodating big-block V-8 power. Bill Thomas became one of a handful of dealers nationwide who marketed “super Camaros.”

Don Edmunds is a very well known constructor of 60s Indy Cars as well as Midgets and even Sprints. So I doubt an employee though probably a contracter. As has happened world wide often not enough money to build cars full time so go and work for someone with more money.

For those that are interested, Spark models did at least six versions of the Cheetahs in 1:43 :

http://www.alpimodel.com/spk/s1450.jpg

http://www.alpimodel.com/spk/s1452.jpg

http://www.alpimodel.com/spk/s1453.jpg

http://www.alpimodel.com/spk/s1454.jpg

http://www.alpimodel.com/spk/s1455.jpg

The models are now quite sought after and some fetch +£100 on the second hand market.

Coming back to the original post of this thread, If there is sufficient demand that Spark can sell 6 x 1,000 models and further demand drives up second hand prices, maybe there is sufficient demand for a book ?

Bumping this thread, here is what I believe to be a Cheetah ? at Gimli ? Manitoba, Canada   mid '60s. perhaps RA Historian or Jerry, or one of the others from Canada could Identify this one ?

 

http://forums.wscc.m...roadrace10jpeg/

 

Michael

Sure looks like a Cheetah...but no, this was Bob Hooper's Mongoose.  Here is a link to his bio:

http://www.rscotthoo...om/bio/bio.html

Click on "design" and "Mongoose"

He is listed in the results for MacDonald, 1965.

Vince H.

Vince H.  thank you for your reply, and link, one learns something everyday ! the what we now know is a "Mongoose" looked a little edgy to my eyes in that photo, I thought it might have been a modified Cheetah, thanks for the clarification.

Michael

Goodwood Festival, 13.07.2018

Paul M

Found this image, what is the function of the pipe to the right of the fuel filler...Vent ?

https://www.facebook...?type=3