Only a handful of the Cheetah were built before the tooling for the car was lost in a fire in 1965. The loss of the original tooling put a halt to any hope that the Cheetah would one day compete head-to-head as a Chevrolet-powered competitor to Shelby’s Cobras. Instead, the original remaining Cheetahs would go on to be valuable collector items, and all Cheetahs produced afterwards would be kit cars… until now.

The new Cheetah is not being billed as a replica, but instead as a continuation, much in the same way Shelby created a handful of continuation Cobras. The concept behind the Cheetah was much the same as Shelby’s — put a powerful engine into a lightweight body. Unfortunately for the Cheetah’s creator Bill Thomas, GM did little to take advantage of the work Thomas was doing.

While the car was a capable — albeit not spectacular — racer, the Cheetah is perhaps best know for its unusual sultry lines and an engine layout that literally eliminated the driveshaft and turned the engine compartment into an oven. Click here to visit the new Cheetah home page.