BILL THOMAS' CHEVY CHEETAH RACE CAR: A DESIGN SO BAD IT WAS GOOD!

Bill with a 1964 Cheetah

The Bill Thomas Cheetah was an American sports car designed and engineered entirely with American components and built from 1963 to 1966 by Chevrolet performance tuner Bill Thomas. It was developed as a competitor to Carroll Shelby's Cobra.

The Cheetah was the brainchild of self-taught engineer Bill Thomas. Nicknamed Mr. Corvette for a string of nearly 100 race victories racked up in Corvettes of his creation, Thomas parlayed his success into a contract with General Motors as a performance guru of sorts.

After successfully prepping GM products for road circuits, drag racing, and even NASCAR, Thomas in 1962 went about the business of preparing a Corvette Sting Ray for what should have been another dominating season. His plans were foiled, however, when Carroll Shelby appeared and began stealing SCCA podiums and headlines with his Ford-powered Cobra.

In 1963 Thomas gained covert support from General Motors Performance Product Group head Vince Piggins to develop the Cheetah as a concept vehicle. It was designed by Thomas and Don Edmunds, his lead fabricator. Edmunds is credited with the bulk of the construction of the car. Financing for the project came from private investors, Thomas, and John Grow, a Rialto California Chevrolet dealer.

Grow owned the prototype car. Using his racing connections, Thomas arranged for material assistance from Chevrolet for the major components - the Corvette 327 engine, Muncie transmission, and independent rear-end assemblies. Other components were stocked from the larger GM parts bin, such as Chevrolet passenger car spindles, and NASCAR spec Chevrolet drum brakes.

1964 427 Cheetah

The 1964 Cheetah above was ordered new in '64 by Jack Goodman, owner of Clarence Dixon Cadillac Dealer in Hollywood, CA. It is one of 15 known to survive in the world today. This is the only Cheetah ever built and raced with the famous Corvette heavy-duty 427ci L88 aluminum-head racing engine option.

The Cheetah was to debut at the 1963 Los Angeles Times Grand Prix but crashed in practice two days before with Don Horvath at the wheel. Its aluminum body was replaced by a fiberglass one. Its first event was at the Cal-Club, Riverside International Raceway event on February 1, 1964.

It crashed at the end of the first lap with Jerry Titus at the wheel. A water hose had come off, spraying water under the rear wheels causing the car to skid off the track at the turn. Titus raced the car throughout the 1964 season.

He was a vocal advocate of the Cheetah as a contributing journalist for Sports Car Graphic magazine. In 1965, Jerry Entin became the car's owner (race car number 58) and he raced it with some success. This car was used in the Elvis Presley movie Spinout.

Barrett Jackson Auction House

In 1969, the car was retired from race duty and was registered for street use. Yes, street use. Appropriately the state was Utah, home of the Bonneville Salt Flats. While the Cheetah was never raced on the legendary land-speed record course, it was undoubtedly one of the most potent road machines in the state – or any state – at the time. 

In a showdown with even the most highly tuned Ford Cobra, the Cheetah’s superior power-to-weight ratio was sure to see its quartet of Corvette taillights fade into the distance.

Casey Putsch describes owning, restoring, and racing a 1965 Bill Thomas Cheetah with Weber carburetors and Rochester Fuel Injection.I

SHELBY MUSTANG GT 350 DEBUTS JAN 27 1965

On January 27, 1965, the Shelby GT 350, a version of a Ford Mustang sports car developed by the American auto racer and car designer Carroll Shelby, is launched. The Shelby GT 350, which featured a 306 horsepower V-8 engine, remained in production through the end of the 1960s and today is a valuable collector’s item.

Carroll Shelby was born in Texas in 1923 and gained fame in the racing world in the 1950s. Among his accomplishments was a victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959, making him just the second American ever to win the iconic endurance race.

By the early 1960s, Shelby had retired from racing for health reasons and was designing high-performance cars. He became known for his race cars, including the Cobra and the Ford GT40, as well as such muscle cars as the Shelby GT 350.

According to the New York Times: “In the ’60s, at the apex of the Southern California car efflorescence, his name was synonymous with muscle cars, relatively small vehicles with big, beefy engines. It was an era that many car buffs consider Detroit’s golden age, and Mr. Shelby was arguably its prime mover.”

The Shelby GT 350 was an iteration of the first Ford Mustang, which was officially unveiled by Henry Ford II at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, on April 17, 1964.

That same day, the new car also debuted in Ford showrooms across America and almost 22,000 Mustangs were immediately snapped up by buyers. Named for a World War II fighter plane, the Ford Mustang had a long hood and short rear deck.

More than 400,000 Mustangs sold within its first year of production, far exceeding sales expectations. Over the ensuing decades, the Mustang has undergone numerous evolutions and remains in production today, with more than 9 million sold.

In addition to collaborating with Ford, Shelby partnered with other automakers, including Chrysler, for whom he designed the Dodge Viper sports car, which launched in 1992.

The Times in 2003 quoted comedian Jay Leno, an avid car collector who has owned several Shelby cars, as saying: “Carroll is sort of like the car world’s Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays… Unlike so many racers, he didn’t come from a rich family, so he signifies that everyman, common-sense ideal. When I was a kid, American cars were big, clunky things, until Carroll used his ingenuity to make them compete with European cars. He was a populist, the kind of guy that other car buffs could emulate.”