SEMA Show 2009: Caccia Custom Cars Ghepardo Blends a Chevy Camaro & Corvette

The SEMA Show has something for everyone. It has everything from lifted cars to lowered trucks, new turbos the size of Jessica Simpson ('09 Jessica, not '07), and more wheels than a freight train. It sounds like a perfect place to go, but “everything” also means “anything”. When you go to sleep you can dream Natalie Portman or Cathy Bates. The Caccia Customs Cars Ghepardo is the latter.

The underpinnings are a strange incestuous marriage between a 2002 Camaro frame and a 2002 Corvette's motor and suspension. The engine is mid-mounted, to give the car a “supercar-ish” identity. This sounds like something thought up on a forum for Chevy fans after a pint of moonshine. So with an F-body skeleton and a Vette heartbeat, Caccia started the real work for this project, giving it a body.

And they did, technically speaking. The result is a brightly colored fiberglass mish-mash design. The proportions and intake ducts look like a rounded Murcielago. However, the mesh on the outside takes us down a slippery slope. It seems like an afterthought, either an oversight from the original design or some type of budget-crunch. At least paint it black. The chrome wheels don't work for me either as they take away from a car's legitimacy somehow. Wheels should be a garnish for a car like this, the shape should be the main event.

Well the outside looks...weird. But this is SEMA, so the inside has to be sick right? 90” plasma TV on the roof and a DJ booth in the glove box, stuff like that? I wish. Sadly the interior is far worse than the outside. It appears they kept the Corvette dash and center console, but decided to deep-fry it in Alcantara first, and then season it with more mesh, only this time in gold. The HVAC controls stick out like a sore thumb, looking like KIA OEM in a sea of aftermarket suede.

Right now everyone is trying to make a supercar, and like a spelling bee, they can't all be winners. Building an original car from scratch is not easy, and hats off to Caccia Custom Cars for doing it. I think it was an exercise for their shop, and with more practice their future may hold something great. As for the Ghepardo, I will say the same thing my baseball coach used to say after my 14th hit-less at bat, “What matters is you tried your best Zack, and you keep practicing. Good Hustle.”