Driving a Bill Thomas Cheetah will make your palms sweat

Fred Yeakel wasn’t looking to sell his Ferrari 250 Lusso in 1989. “I would get offers all the time and just say no,” the 77-year-old Yeakel says. “But this one guy wouldn’t go away. After a few months of calls, I told him I’d trade it for a Cheetah just to get rid of him.”

It was good plan. Cheetahs (the car, not the cat) are extremely rare. Most enthusiasts have never even seen one. Bill Thomas only completed 10 or 11 of them in 1963 and ’64, and the rigors of racing claimed a few along the way. But Yeakel’s scheme didn’t work. To his astonishment, the phone rang again a few weeks later and his nearly 30-year proprietorship of this race car began… read more >