I’ll take a short detour here to mention my other favorite topic in the world, MUSIC! Most hardcore gearheads know that cars and rock n’ roll are so indelibly connected that its hard to imagine one without the other. One wonders how people enjoyed fast driving before 1955! If you’re like me (and since you’re reading this, I figure there must be some commonality!), you owe it to yourself to hit the collector’s vinyl market and get yourself a copy of this:
This is the ESTRUS GEARBOX, box set of 3 45rpm 7” records released in 1992, each with 4 tracks-2 per side-done by various bands on the Estrus label, and every song is about driving and cars… or sex and cars, or booze and cars, or money and cars, or…you get the idea. There’s some bands on here that went on to some notoriety but there’s also some that disappeared, and one of the best songs on this comp-the very last track-is by a band I can find almost nothing about, an outfit called The Vacant Lot. I believe they were from New York and they did release one or two albums but I have never been able to find them. Their track on the Estrus Gearbox, “Cheater Cheater”, clocks in at barely 1:30, and it’s 90 seconds of unbelievable tunnel-rammed energy! I’ll include 30 of those 90 seconds here, though sadly it was recorded via the air with a microphone as I have no means of copying my vinyl to digital yet…
And I brought this up because….??? Because: CHEETAHS ALWAYS WIN! And I just built my last Aurora Cheetah, rounding out my squadron of 4 with this bright orange one! I had to dig deep for this in an ebay bidding war and was afraid I’d overpaid for it, until it arrived and it turned out to be in immaculate, like-new condition! It was pre-printed with #2 but that’s long since taken in my racing fleet, so I reassigned #59 to it and fitted it with a set of Road Race Replica “Star” wheels, a style I have so far only used on one other car.
The Cheetah is quite a fascinating car: hand made in California between 1963 and ’66 and fitted with either mouse or rat Chevy engines, this was essentially a Chevy-powered response to Carol Shelby’s Cobra, and by all accounts was even wilder and faster than that car; that its not as famous today is likely because so few were built.
Now that I have a complete squadron, here are all 4 of my Cheetahs on the track: yellow #18, blue #19, white #99, and now orange #59. This is the final 30 seconds of “Cheater Cheater” by the Vacant Lot, but you really should just get the records…
I mean, you do have a turntable…right???
