The Story of the Corvette-Powered Cheetah V8

By the time Carroll Shelby’s Cobra started embarrassing Corvettes on road courses and drag strips in 1962, the pressure inside General Motors had become difficult to ignore. Chevrolet’s flagship sports car was losing races to a lightweight, Ford-powered roadster built by a small operation in California, and the people responsible for GM’s performance image knew something had to change. The problem was that GM was bound by the auto industry’s self-imposed racing ban, which meant any response would have to come through channels that didn’t officially exist.

That’s where Bill Thomas came in. Born in May of 1921 and based in Anaheim, California, Thomas had spent years tuning and preparing Chevrolet products for competition. He began his career preparing Corvettes for racing in the mid-1950s, eventually opening Bill Thomas Race Cars in 1960. By the time the Cobra problem surfaced, Thomas had built enough credibility with GM’s performance division that Vince Piggins, head of Chevrolet’s Performance Product Group, was willing to work with him quietly. Piggins sent Thomas back to Anaheim with a purchase order for the 100 cars then required by SCCA in production classes, along with assurances of C2 Corvette parts support and less than one year to deliver a small fleet of Cheetahs.