1975/6 Cheetah G601 - 2 litre sports car

Beat Eggimann racing a Cheetah G601 in the Dix Mille tours du Castellet 2017.  It came sixth.

Pour plus de photos des voitures du sport de cette époque, suivez ce lien.

For more photos of seventies endurance racers racing at Paul Ricard, click here.

Cheetah Automobiles, Lausanne, Switzerland.  Chuck Graemiger, a Swiss-American racing driver, founded Cheetah, an occasional manufacturer of sports racing cars from the early seventies to the early nineties. He also designed the cars.  The G601 followed on from the G501 and was a 2 litre sports car powered by Cosworth or BMW engines.  It raced in the Le Mans 24 hours from 1976 to 1979 but was never classified as a finisher.   The colours of the car pictured correspond to the Walter Wolf Racing car that entered but did not qualify at the 1980 Le mans.  They also competed in other sports car races but without great success.  Later the same company produced Group C cars, click here for details.

1989/1991 Cheetah G606 / SGR001 / ROC 002

Eric Richenbacher, 1989 Cheetah G606, le Mans Classic Group C Racing 2016.

ROC / Chuck Graemiger, Switzerland.  This rare Group C rare was produced by Chuck Graemiger and Racing Organisation Course and went through a number of name changes.  It only appeared at Le Mans and Magny Cours in 1991 where it started but failed to finish.  The drivers were Pascal Fabre and Bernard Thuner.  It had a Cosworth DFR engine and a carbon fibre monocoque.  The car was designed to sell to privateers but Group C was declining and it never happened.   It now appears as a welcome participant in historic racing.  First known as a Cheetah like Chuck's first Aston Martin engined car, it quickly became an ROC and an SGR.

Thomas Cheetah

Thmas Cheetah, Magny Cours Classic Days 2014

Pour plus de photos des Classic Days à Magny Cours 2014, suivez ce lien.

For more photos from the 2014 Classic Days at Magny Cours, click on the link above.

Bill Thomas Race Cars, Anaheim, USA.  Bill Thomas developed the Cheetah with GM funding as a competitor to the Ford Shelby Cobras.  They had Thomas tuned Chevrolet 327 V8 engines that were very powerful.  It was a project that lasted from 1963 to 1966.  Around 10 to 20 were built originally in period but many replicas have been built since. The first cars were made with aluminium bodies but this was quickly replaced with fibre glass. The project ended after homologation rules were changed.  In any case the Cheetah had a few handling and overheating issues that effected its race performance.  Ralph Salyer won eleven minor events in the USA in a Cheetah but it never really became a Cobra beater.  Another was used in drag racing in the USA.