For those who were busy worshipping at the altar of Carroll Shelby and the AC Cobra in the 1960s, life was good and Shelby was doing just fine. For fans of General Motors, however, things couldn’t have been worse if they tried. GM was still wary of having much of anything to do with racing after the 1957 AMA ban (itself caused by the 1955 LeMans disaster), but at the same time watching from the sidelines wasn’t helping matters any. GM might not have been officially playing ball, but history shows that there were some deals made in back bays and warehouse delivery doors that sure looked like factory help to the trained eye. Designed to be a cruiser, not a race car, and set up with an engine set so far back in the body that the transmission bolted to the axle with only a u-joint in between, the Cheetah was a strange beast. It looked like General Motors, using Thomas, had managed to draw a bead on the Cobra, but flaws started popping up: the chassis was not truly designed for road racing, which gave the Cheetah some unpredictable handling characteristics, and the headers flow over the top of the driver and passenger’s legs on the outboard side, turning the interior into a roasting pit. But on a straight, even the mighty Cobra fought to keep up with the Cheetah.

Except the first two prototype cars, Cheetahs were fiberglass, and were built by two companies: Contemporary Fiberglass and Fiberglass Trends. Contemporary Fiberglass built most of the cars after issues cropped up with Fiberglass Trend’s molds, but later on Fiberglass Trends built a drag-racing variation of the car they called the GTR. What we’ve found is neither: this is a Funny Car body mold for the Cheetah. All of the parts are here: the main body sections, a front spoiler section, and even a handy rolling cart for all of the pieces. The body measures out to a 112-inch wheelbase, with a 62-inch front track and 65-inch rear track measurement. The chassis, running gear and final fitment are up to you, but if you ever want to crank out a fiberglass copy of a historically legendary race car, a few bills out of your piggy bank will bring it all home!

Craigslist Link: Bill Thomas Cheetah Funny Car body mold