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About this brand
In the magnificent, deafening arena of 1980s sports car racing, the grids were dominated by gods. There were the works-backed titans of Porsche and Lancia, and the established British customer-car empires of March and Lola. To even think of joining this fight took a special kind of optimistic madness. To do it from a small workshop in Switzerland, a country with no mainstream auto industry to speak of, was pure, unadulterated, glorious romanticism. This is the story of Cheetah Automobiles, a marque known only to the true connoisseur, and the passion project of one man: Charles “Chuck” Graemiger.
Before we proceed, let us clear the air. This is not the Cheetah you may be thinking of. This is not Bill Thomas’s Californian-built, V8-powered, Cobra-killing brute of the 1960s. That was a car of sledgehammer simplicity. The Swiss Cheetah was something else entirely: a sophisticated, European, ground-effect prototype, born from the mind of a single, driven engineer. Chuck Graemiger was a man steeped in the racing world, and by the mid-1970s, he had decided to stop modifying other people’s cars and build his own.
The first stirrings of the marque came in the Group 6 era, with cars like the G501, often powered by the dependable 2.0-litre BMW F2 engine. These were neat, tidy, and conventional sports racers that competed in European hillclimbs and the Interserie championship, serving as a rolling testbed for Graemiger’s theories. They were the preparatory sketches for the masterpiece he truly wanted to build. His canvas would be the new, spectacular, and wildly ambitious formula that arrived in 1982: Group C.
Group C was a game-changer. It was a fuel-limited formula, a challenge of efficiency and aerodynamics. It promised that a clever, small constructor could, in theory, beat the giants. This was the moment Graemiger had been waiting for. He, along with his partner, Swiss driver Loris Kessel, founded Cheetah Automobiles in the village of Gland, Switzerland. Their first Group C creation was the G601. It was a classic “garagista” car: a well-penned, aluminium-monocoque, ground-effect chassis, built in-house, and powered by a customer engine. The choice of engine was the 3.5-litre BMW M1 engine, a magnificent straight-six, but one that was immediately, hopelessly, outgunned by the turbocharged Porsche 956s that had come to define the category. The G601 was a starting point, but it was not the answer.
Graemiger knew that to be taken seriously, to have any hope of racing, not just participating, he needed a real Group C engine. For a privateer in the early 80s, that meant one thing: the Ford-Cosworth DFL. The 3.9-litre, long-stroke endurance version of the legendary DFV F1 engine was the heart of nearly every privateer C1 effort. The G603 was born. This was the definitive Cheetah. It was a pure, Cosworth-powered, ground-effect wedge, a car built to slice the air and compete at the highest level: the World Sportscar Championship.
The Cheetahs, often finished in a stark white with their simple logo, became a fixture in the WSC paddocks of the mid-80s. They were the ultimate underdogs, a tiny Swiss flag flying in a sea of German and British dominance. The results sheet, it must be said, does not tell the story. The cars were quick in flashes, but they were perpetually, tragically, underfunded. Graemiger was the engineer, designer, and team principal all in one. They were fighting the full might of the Rothmans-Porsche works team and the customer 956s run by giants like Joest and Kremer. The Cheetahs often failed to qualify, or retired with the kind of mechanical gremlins that more testing and more money would have solved. But the effort was heroic. To see the G603 on track at Monza, Silverstone, or the Nürburgring was to see a dream being lived in real-time.
But it was their next, and final, evolution that cemented the Cheetah’s place in the pantheon of glorious, ambitious failures. By 1983, Graemiger knew the Cosworth was not enough to challenge for an overall podium. He needed something unique, something with thunderous power. He found it in the most unlikely of places: the dormant competition department of Aston Martin. The G604 project was born. Graemiger penned a new car, an evolution of his G603, designed to house the brutal, 5.3-litre, quad-cam Aston Martin-Tickford V8.
This was a magnificent, terrifying idea. The G604 was a beautiful, low-line machine, and the engine, developed by Aston’s specialist arm, was a monster. The sound it produced was not the high-strung shriek of its Cosworth or Lancia rivals; it was a deep, guttural, earth-shaking V8 bellow that was a fan favourite before it ever turned a wheel in anger. In 1983, the car was brought to Le Mans. It was a disaster. The car was overweight, the new engine was profoundly unreliable, and it failed to qualify.
They returned. In 1984, the car, driven by Loris Kessel, Tiff Needell, and Laurent Ferrier, qualified. This in itself was a victory. But the race was short, the new engine proving far too fragile for 24 hours of abuse. In 1985, they returned again. The car was now in the hands of a Belgian team, but it was the same G604. It was the same story. A glorious, thunderous noise, a flash of speed, and an early retirement. The Aston Martin V8 project was the zenith of Cheetah’s ambition, a brave attempt to find a unique path to speed, but it was a technical and financial black hole.
By the late 1980s, the dream was over. The G604, later reverted to Cosworth DFL power, was the last of the line. Group C was becoming an F1-engined, works-only playground for Mercedes, Jaguar, and Peugeot. The specialist constructors, the “garagistas” like Cheetah, Argo, Tiga, and Spice, were being squeezed into extinction. The money ran out, and the Gland workshops fell silent.
Cheetah’s story is not found in a list of victories. It is not a tale of championships. It is a story for the true enthusiast, the one who walks the entire paddock, not just the front of the grid. It is a testament to the fact that, for a brief, glorious moment in the 1980s, the regulations were open enough, and the dream big enough, for one man in a small Swiss workshop to build a car from scratch, strap a thundering Aston Martin engine into it, and take on the world at Le Mans.
Type
Foundation Year
Country
Founder/s
Headquarters
Type
Foundation Year
Country
Founder/s
Headquarters
About this brand
In the magnificent, deafening arena of 1980s sports car racing, the grids were dominated by gods. There were the works-backed titans of Porsche and Lancia, and the established British customer-car empires of March and Lola. To even think of joining this fight took a special kind of optimistic madness. To do it from a small workshop in Switzerland, a country with no mainstream auto industry to speak of, was pure, unadulterated, glorious romanticism. This is the story of Cheetah Automobiles, a marque known only to the true connoisseur, and the passion project of one man: Charles “Chuck” Graemiger.
Before we proceed, let us clear the air. This is not the Cheetah you may be thinking of. This is not Bill Thomas’s Californian-built, V8-powered, Cobra-killing brute of the 1960s. That was a car of sledgehammer simplicity. The Swiss Cheetah was something else entirely: a sophisticated, European, ground-effect prototype, born from the mind of a single, driven engineer. Chuck Graemiger was a man steeped in the racing world, and by the mid-1970s, he had decided to stop modifying other people’s cars and build his own.
The first stirrings of the marque came in the Group 6 era, with cars like the G501, often powered by the dependable 2.0-litre BMW F2 engine. These were neat, tidy, and conventional sports racers that competed in European hillclimbs and the Interserie championship, serving as a rolling testbed for Graemiger’s theories. They were the preparatory sketches for the masterpiece he truly wanted to build. His canvas would be the new, spectacular, and wildly ambitious formula that arrived in 1982: Group C.
Group C was a game-changer. It was a fuel-limited formula, a challenge of efficiency and aerodynamics. It promised that a clever, small constructor could, in theory, beat the giants. This was the moment Graemiger had been waiting for. He, along with his partner, Swiss driver Loris Kessel, founded Cheetah Automobiles in the village of Gland, Switzerland. Their first Group C creation was the G601. It was a classic “garagista” car: a well-penned, aluminium-monocoque, ground-effect chassis, built in-house, and powered by a customer engine. The choice of engine was the 3.5-litre BMW M1 engine, a magnificent straight-six, but one that was immediately, hopelessly, outgunned by the turbocharged Porsche 956s that had come to define the category. The G601 was a starting point, but it was not the answer.
Graemiger knew that to be taken seriously, to have any hope of racing, not just participating, he needed a real Group C engine. For a privateer in the early 80s, that meant one thing: the Ford-Cosworth DFL. The 3.9-litre, long-stroke endurance version of the legendary DFV F1 engine was the heart of nearly every privateer C1 effort. The G603 was born. This was the definitive Cheetah. It was a pure, Cosworth-powered, ground-effect wedge, a car built to slice the air and compete at the highest level: the World Sportscar Championship.
The Cheetahs, often finished in a stark white with their simple logo, became a fixture in the WSC paddocks of the mid-80s. They were the ultimate underdogs, a tiny Swiss flag flying in a sea of German and British dominance. The results sheet, it must be said, does not tell the story. The cars were quick in flashes, but they were perpetually, tragically, underfunded. Graemiger was the engineer, designer, and team principal all in one. They were fighting the full might of the Rothmans-Porsche works team and the customer 956s run by giants like Joest and Kremer. The Cheetahs often failed to qualify, or retired with the kind of mechanical gremlins that more testing and more money would have solved. But the effort was heroic. To see the G603 on track at Monza, Silverstone, or the Nürburgring was to see a dream being lived in real-time.
But it was their next, and final, evolution that cemented the Cheetah’s place in the pantheon of glorious, ambitious failures. By 1983, Graemiger knew the Cosworth was not enough to challenge for an overall podium. He needed something unique, something with thunderous power. He found it in the most unlikely of places: the dormant competition department of Aston Martin. The G604 project was born. Graemiger penned a new car, an evolution of his G603, designed to house the brutal, 5.3-litre, quad-cam Aston Martin-Tickford V8.
This was a magnificent, terrifying idea. The G604 was a beautiful, low-line machine, and the engine, developed by Aston’s specialist arm, was a monster. The sound it produced was not the high-strung shriek of its Cosworth or Lancia rivals; it was a deep, guttural, earth-shaking V8 bellow that was a fan favourite before it ever turned a wheel in anger. In 1983, the car was brought to Le Mans. It was a disaster. The car was overweight, the new engine was profoundly unreliable, and it failed to qualify.
They returned. In 1984, the car, driven by Loris Kessel, Tiff Needell, and Laurent Ferrier, qualified. This in itself was a victory. But the race was short, the new engine proving far too fragile for 24 hours of abuse. In 1985, they returned again. The car was now in the hands of a Belgian team, but it was the same G604. It was the same story. A glorious, thunderous noise, a flash of speed, and an early retirement. The Aston Martin V8 project was the zenith of Cheetah’s ambition, a brave attempt to find a unique path to speed, but it was a technical and financial black hole.
By the late 1980s, the dream was over. The G604, later reverted to Cosworth DFL power, was the last of the line. Group C was becoming an F1-engined, works-only playground for Mercedes, Jaguar, and Peugeot. The specialist constructors, the “garagistas” like Cheetah, Argo, Tiga, and Spice, were being squeezed into extinction. The money ran out, and the Gland workshops fell silent.
Cheetah’s story is not found in a list of victories. It is not a tale of championships. It is a story for the true enthusiast, the one who walks the entire paddock, not just the front of the grid. It is a testament to the fact that, for a brief, glorious moment in the 1980s, the regulations were open enough, and the dream big enough, for one man in a small Swiss workshop to build a car from scratch, strap a thundering Aston Martin engine into it, and take on the world at Le Mans.