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Corvette racer Bill Thomas wanted to build a car that would compete with Carroll Shelby’s Cobra that was dominating racetracks in the 1960s. He called it the Cheetah, but very few were made, so it’s fair to say getting your hands on an original car would be a tough proposition. There is a solution: the Cheetah Evolution.
Using Corvette components, Thomas planned to build 100 copies of his race cars for SCCA homologation. The Cheetah had a 90-inch wheelbase, lightweight chassis, Corvette rear suspension, and 11-inch drum brakes. The engine was a Corvette 327 stroked to 377 cubes, fed by a Rochester fuel injection setup, and backed by an aluminum Borg-Warner four-speed. The injection-fed 377 produced between 460 and 550 horsepower and weighed just 1,550 pounds. The engine was pushed so far back in the chassis that it was considered a mid-engine car, and it was connected to the rear differential with U-joints; no driveshaft was necessary.