1967 Cheetah Camaro

[ssl78]

No hes not confused its a 67 Camaro. Here is something I found on it. Some people believed that the Z in Z-28 stood for Zora, as in Zora Arkus-Duntov, the Corvette engineer. Not so. Piggins had put a name on the original 283 prototype before he presented it at the October show-and-tell. The name Piggins had chosen was Cheetah. But Vince took that handmade decal off the car at the last moment, muttering, "Well, a name is a name is a name," and the coupe Estes drove carried no designation at all.

"There wasn't any suggestion of what we were going to call this car," notes Piggins. "When it came down to having to decide, somebody just said, `Hey, it's option RPO Z-28; let's call it Z-28!' So the name just grew from there. The graphics people did things with the Z, and that's how the designation stuck. The car got its name from the actual option.
I think he is referring to have this car he said it was in some magazine in 1966.

[427TJ]

This is from Michael Lamm's book:

[67L78conv]

That makes much more sense than the Camaro line being named Cheetah. There was a scheduled RPO for a tri power engine but it was for a 396 that was cut before it was produced. I believe that the date it was removed was 10/66 but haven't been able to find the docs I have on it yet. I haven't come across one for a small block engine as of yet in my research.

[John Brown]

There was also a small block GM engineering 3x2 set up that was being tested for trans-am use. It was dropped in favor of the 2x4's and the crossram. The small block 3x2's used 3 inline Holley carbs and had the same spacing as the Corvette big blocks. It could take the same big block air cleaner. There are several pictures of the Winters cast 3x2 manifold in one of the Smokey Yunick performance books.

[COPO_Anders]

[1967Z28]

As shown in the above excerpt from Michael Lamm's book, the Cheetah name was talked about as a possibility for the model they were putting together to qualify the Camaro for the Trans-Am series. This model was eventually called the Z-28 after Cheetah and a few others were crossed off the list. The only car I am aware of that could have gotten a Cheetah decal on it was the Press Preview car shown at the ARRC event at Riverside in November '66. I have the first '67 Z-28 off the production line and my car never had a Cheetah decal or emblem on it, nor a 3x2 manifold.

-Jon

[70CitrusZ]

and so the cheetah is laid to rest...