In 1967, while GM was cranking up production of the 1967 Camaro, a couple guys in California were getting ready to release a line of "the coolest toy cars in the world".

Mattel Inc. had factories in the U.S. and Hong Kong creating die-cast metal toy cars in 1:64 scale with some of the slickest high performace modifications from the 60's California Hot-Rod scene.

Early (1968) advertising listed one of the cars with the name "Cheetah", but due to a conflict over copyright/trademark, it was renamed "Python".