It wasn't about racing.... [PIC]

You mentioned the problem of the Cheetah was the chassis was designed to be a concept car so it lacked the needed stiffness to be a successful road race car. Engine/exhaust heat was another issue with the Cheetah as the location of the engine and exhaust produced a ton of heat into the driver compartment. 

This car was never developed to overcome either of the two issues before it was ended plus GM pulling the plug on racing at the time. 

But what a time period that brought so many cars of unique styles and sadly most of the people from that era are no longer with us. 

Interesting story is Carrol Shelby was going to go to General Motors but with the Corvette he saw the writing on the wall that he would never get what he needed from them as GM was not going to help fund a car that was going to beat the Corvette on the race track. In the end I think it was Carrol Shelby that was responsible for cars like the Cheetah and the Corvette Grand Sport because of the success of the Cobra and Daytona race cars. 

So very interesting !! 

Never seen that one before. Nice model! That spare tire doesn't look very accessible. Were they required?

@john-shamblin Spare tires and even potential luggage space were required but never used on the circuit. Note the Cobra Daytona in race day prep.

@rich-sufficool

That's what I thought. If the rear window on the Cheeta didn't open, I guess the spare tire would have been just to meet the rules?

Spare tires were required by the rules of the FIA. 

@john3976

Interesting. I wonder if the spare tire had to be readily accessible.

There were several odd rules back in those days, but one reason was because the cars were in fact sports cars and not pure race cars like today. So they were required to not only have a spare tire like the road car but they had to fit a certain size luggage as well, it is my understanding that if the engines was under two liters it had to fit one prescribed piece of luggage and if it was over 2 liters it has to fit two prescribed pieces of luggage. 

Supposedly the two square boxes at the rear of the GT40 cars that the exhaust ran between were built to accommodate the correct size luggage requirement. Later GT40's had a longer box and the spare tire behind the engine. 

Here is a photo showing the two boxes on a Diecast. 

I found this explanation from another site on the GT40 MKII for the 1966 Le Mans race:

There was a minimum storage requirement - along with a working spare tire requirement. The vehicle had to be able to hold 2 official sized pieces of luggage. The car manufacturers found some strange ways to do this. On the Chaparral 2F there were small compartments in front of the front wheels and below the headlights. To show that the spare tire was legitimate they had to take the spare out, touch the ground with it and reinstall it.

Great set of pics, Rich...I always loved the looks of the Cheetah.