CamaroFacts

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1921–2009

Bill Thomas

Chevrolet tuner: the Cheetah, then Nickey's 427 Camaros

Bill Thomas connects Chevrolet's racing and dealer-tuner histories: Corvette development, the Cheetah sports racer and 427 Camaro work with Nickey Chevrolet. A period trade-show display documents that Camaro partnership.

Thomas started out tuning Corvettes and had his own shop, Bill Thomas Race Cars in Anaheim, California, by 1960, when GM came to him for performance development work on drag cars and the Chevy II. The Cheetah began as a proof of concept to show GM what the shop could do and became a Cobra-fighter he raced for promotion.

From the Cheetah to Nickey
From the Cheetah to Nickey Cheetah: Thomas race-car project; Nickey 427: Thomas Camaro conversions. Thomas’s Cheetah work preceded his Camaro conversions for Nickey. Piggins supported the Cheetah and later developed the factory Z/28 program. Cheetah Thomas race-car project Nickey 427 Thomas Camaro conversions
Thomas’s Cheetah work preceded his Camaro conversions for Nickey. Piggins supported the Cheetah and later developed the factory Z/28 program. Original CamaroFacts diagram. History and sources.

What makes it a Camaro story is who was quietly behind it. Vince Piggins provided covert support for the Cheetah in 1963, and he was the same man who would create the Z/28 and run the COPO route that got 427s into Camaros. Chevrolet had officially left racing; Piggins kept finding ways for it to race anyway.

The Cheetah remained a small-volume project, and later accounts count different things. One estimate gives as many as 23 cars in varying states of completion, while BTM Race Cars' Bob Auxier gives 19 chassis and 33 bodies. Those totals are not interchangeable counts of completed cars. A factory fire on September 9, 1965 also disrupted the project.

Thomas recalled in a 1981 Automobile Quarterly interview that the production requirement rose from 100 to 1,000. The 1964 FIA book distinguished 100 GT cars from 1,000 Group 1 touring cars, each over twelve months. His recollection and the period categories need separate attribution; they do not establish a single 1964 rule change causally linking the Cheetah and Z/28. The later Z/28 pursued Trans-Am road racing in a different car and class context.

Sunoco/Penske Trans-Am Camaro tribute
Sunoco/Penske Trans-Am Camaro (tribute car) Photo: TaurusEmerald, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Original photograph License
1964 FIA production thresholds depended on category
1964 FIA production thresholds depended on category Group 1: 1,000 touring cars; Group 3: 100 GT cars. The 1964 FIA Appendix J lists separate categories, each measured over twelve months. These class minima do not establish the date or category of the increase Thomas recalled in 1981, or prove why a project ended. Group 1 1,000 touring cars Group 3 100 GT cars
The 1964 FIA Appendix J lists separate categories, each measured over twelve months. These class minima do not establish the date or category of the increase Thomas recalled in 1981, or prove why a project ended. Original CamaroFacts diagram. FIA 1964 Appendix J, Articles 257 and 266.

The direct Camaro connection is documented in HOT ROD's 2018 account of Eric Rickman's January 1967 trade-show photographs from the Petersen Publishing archive. Nickey Chevrolet and Bill Thomas Race Cars shared a booth with a Camaro. Nickey's display included 427 engine components; Thomas's included traction kits, Z/28 headers and parts for 427 conversions. The display records cooperation between dealer and builder without establishing a production total or an exclusive first-conversion claim.

The January 1967 display paired dealer and builder
The January 1967 display paired dealer and builder Nickey: 427 engine components; Thomas: Headers and traction kits. Nickey and Bill Thomas Race Cars shared a January 1967 booth, according to HOT ROD’s archive account. These labels group displayed components; conversion counts and priority remain unresolved. Nickey 427 engine components Thomas Headers and traction kits
Nickey and Bill Thomas Race Cars shared a January 1967 booth, according to HOT ROD’s archive account. These labels group displayed components; conversion counts and priority remain unresolved. Original CamaroFacts diagram. HOT ROD archive feature, April 4, 2018, on Eric Rickman’s January 1967 photographs.

Did you know

  • Some Cheetah counts run lower still: one puts it at about 11 completed and sold cars. The current custom shop counts 29 ID numbers issued and 15 cars surviving worldwide.
  • The Cheetah's first race was February 1, 1964, at Riverside, and it crashed on the first lap. Jerry Titus then raced one through 1964, and the Cro-Sal Special of Ralph Salyer and Gene Crowe scored ten wins in SCCA racing in 1964-65.
  • The Cheetah was laid out on the shop floor. Thomas and fabricator Don Edmunds placed the major components and drew chalk outlines as blueprints, then sketched the body freehand. The engine sat far back in the chassis, which eliminated a traditional driveshaft; the trade-off was heat, with drivers suffering in the cockpit.
  • Thomas's Corvette tuning began in 1956 at C. S. Mead Motors, and in 1962 he prepared 409 Bel Airs and Biscaynes for drag racing. He was born May 28, 1921, and died October 10, 2009.
  • The fire didn't end Cheetah deliveries at once: a Cheetah ordered in the fall of 1965 was delivered in April 1966. Thomas also planned a Super Cheetah, a 427-powered Le Mans prototype on a 4130 chromoly space frame with input from Bob Bondurant and Jerry Titus, but it was never completed.
  • The Cheetah was small and light: a 327 small-block, front mid-engine car on a 90-inch wheelbase weighing about 1,650 pounds by one account (another says 1,500), with racing versions using a fuel-injected 377-cubic-inch engine. One even appeared in the Elvis Presley film Spinout.
  • His name lives on. BTM LLC of Arizona, founded in 1992 and run by Bob Auxier, builds, restores and certifies Cheetahs and offers modern FIA-spec continuation cars with a 360-hp 327 or 600-hp 396/427 engine.
Sources for these details

Key beats

  • Bill Thomas Race Cars, Anaheim, California, founded by 1960
  • Built the Cheetah 1963–1966 to take on Shelby's Cobra
  • FIA's 1964 rules distinguished GT and touring production requirements by category
  • Factory burned, 9 September 1965
  • Then built 427 Camaro conversions with Nickey Chevrolet