1995 Grotti Cheetah

Overview

Rockstar's full description is one sentence: "Grotti's signature mid '90s sports car and ode to Shore Drive, the '95 Grotti Cheetah is complete with a minimalist, retro-futuristic livery and available to punctuate later-stage action."

Two phrases matter. "Ode to Shore Drive" ties the car to Vice Beach's neon strip, the road Rockstar also tells Stanier owners to cruise. "Later-stage action" means this is not a car you drive out of the garage on day one. Rockstar has not said exactly when it unlocks, but the wording points to the second half of the story.

What the official screenshots show

Rockstar's image descriptions for the Cheetah are specific:

• A white Cheetah "parked in front of Pegassi". Pegassi is another of the series' Italian supercar brands, so the shot appears to put Grotti's car outside a rival's showroom or sign.
• The car "parked with its headlamps up", which confirms pop-up lamps, a very 1980s and 1990s detail.
• Close-ups of the taillights, the make and model badges and the licence plate.
• A red interior behind the white body.

The white Cheetah in Trailer 1Unconfirmed

About half a minute into Trailer 1, the camera runs down a neon beachfront strip of parked sports cars. PC Gamer and GamesRadar both list a white Grotti Cheetah there, and PC Gamer notes that its plate spells out "cheetah". Our separate entry covers that CH33TAH plate.

At the time, outlets called it the Cheetah Classic, the GTA Online car. Since Rockstar revealed the '95 Cheetah in white, some viewers believe the trailer car is the same model. That is plausible but not confirmed: Rockstar has not linked the trailer shot to the Ultimate Edition car.

The Cheetah name in GTA

The Cheetah goes back to the original Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, where it was the series' Ferrari Testarossa stand-in. Traxion summarised GTA VI's first trailer as confirming that "the Ferrari Testarossa-inspired Cheetah will return from Vice City."

GTA Online added a separate throwback, the Grotti Cheetah Classic, which Rockstar's Newswire pitched as a car for anyone who could never decide "between vintage vogue and cutting-edge chic". The '95 Cheetah in GTA VI is a different, newly dated model, and PC Gamer calls it "definitely a new ride".

Why white, and why Shore DriveUnconfirmed

This is our reading, not Rockstar's. The most famous white Testarossa is the one from Miami Vice. The show introduced the Ferrari in its third season, and a black car was repainted white because producer Michael Mann wanted it to show up better in night scenes. It became the detectives' hero car on Miami's neon-lit streets.

GTA VI's Shore Drive is Vice City's version of that beachfront. A white Grotti Cheetah described as an "ode to Shore Drive" reads like a direct nod to that TV car, a decade later in the model year. Rockstar has not confirmed the reference.

What it suggests about gameplayUnconfirmed

The "later-stage action" line is the most useful gameplay hint. It suggests that at least some edition bonus vehicles are gated by story progress rather than handed over at the start. Rockstar has not published performance figures, a storage location or a price for the car.

Explore next

• Shore Driverelated to[1]
• The Cheetah Classic on Ocean Drive wears a CH33TAH platerelated toUnconfirmed[3][4]
• Vice Cityrelated to[2]