In the 2L-class of the Group 6 cars, there was another Swiss engineer active next to Peter Sauber. Swiss-American engineer Chuck Graemiger was also an ambitious manufacturer who wanted to build his own racing cars. He was born in the Philippines and came to Switserland when he was 20 years old. He went to London for his engineering studies and came to Lausanne with his diploma. He rolled in the racing business thanks to a rich Swedish guy who wanted someone to look after his Ferrari 250 GTO and a job in th Caroll Shelby team for the 1965 Le Mans race. He founded Cheetah Automobiles. The company emerged after Graemiger retired from competitive driving following his experiences in various racing cars, including a Lotus Elite and a Chevron B8-BMW.
In the middle of the oil-crisis of 1973 he started his first project. Apparently he got some starting funds from a French man. Graemiger did not like coincidences, so he made a 1:4 model bodywork and tested that in the wind tunnel of the Specialized Moulding. The monocoque structure was build by Mader Racing. The G501 was born.
In the first testing session, the son of the money-man destroyed the car in an accident. The father gave all the blame to Graemiger. The Swiss decided to part from him. With help from friends, the G501 got repaired. In 1975 they start to race in the world championship and some races with Peter Bernhard. He would also race the car in the Swiss championship with success in 1976.
Then he was approached by Frenchman Daniel Brillat in the spring of 1976. This man came to his workshop in Lausanne when Chuck and his mechanic John Boot were at work on a new car. Brillat wanted to start in the 24 hour Le Mans. Brillat had the money and a BMW engine. That made Graemiger go on to start the new car construction.
The company created in five weeks the G601. And they made it through scrutineering and through qualifying for the LeMans 24h. The car still had to be finished in the day before the qualifications. Then Brillat started his first lap and did not came back again. He crashed at the Hunaudieres. The car came back all in different pieces, total loss. They reconstructed the car just in time to get qualified on Thursday. The #36 started, but Brillat had to stop in the first lap, transmission failure. Regulations stated that a driver cannot get outside help, so Graemiger and Boot shouted from the outside how he had to repair the car. It worked. The car fired up again, did 500 metres and stopped permanently.
Brillat and Francois Trisconi raced the car in some races and got a P9 and championship points in the Dijon 500km.
In 1977, Brillat was back in LeMans with the G601, this time painted red together with Eric Vuagnat and Sandro Plastini, a neighbour of Graemiger. Due to an accident at the Dunlop chicane and repairs, they could not start the race. The older G501- Ford (#32) was also entered in an original brown colour and raced by Trisconi - Chevalley and Hugh Bancroft. They rented the car from Peter Bernhard. They had a good race up until an oil leak in the engine made the car irreparable. The red car, still a Sandro Plastina organisation thing, was back in Le Mans in 1978. The car stayed in one piece, but was not classified (not enough milage done).
1977:
1978:
There was also a second G601-BMW built. But money was very tight, so the firm came partly in the hands of Garage Schupbach in Aigle.
For the 1979 24 hours race, the new G601(#17) was for Sandro Plastina again joined by Mario Luini, ski-champion Philippe Roux and Philippe Jeanneret. The raced ended in hour 9 with an engine problem. The older G601 (#18) was again for Daniel Brillat. Their race ended in the 8th hour.
Plastina persisted in 1980 with the same G601 with a Cosworth engine, with the help of Walter Wolf Racing. Multiple troubles in training and a weird political issue in the pits, prevented the car to take the start. The end of the Cheetah 2L story?
Because the was no money, Graemiger got a job in the Mampe F2 team with Stefan Bellof and Beppe Gabbiani. He was contacted in 1981 as an engineer in the Shadow F1 team, where he would assist in the development of the new DN12. Also here the money was tight, so he got fired.
Then came a call from Loris Kessel, who already had driven for Cheetah. With the money from Swiss oil company Gatoil, he was able to build a new endurance racer with a Cosworth DFV engine for the 1983 season. The G603 in blue and white colours was, after a shakedown by Marc Surer, only active in the last two 1000 km races.
But he could continue with Gatoil money in 1984. A contract with Aston Martin for the engine was done. But the V8 6,6L engine from tuner Tickford was very heavy. Graemiger compensated this with a composite chassis made by Technical Resin Bonder. Because of the stiffer chassis, the G604 also had a very sophisticated rear suspension. But the engines were a disaster. It improved when Graemiger did the revision himself, but there were no great results. It was time again for a LeMans race with John Cooper and Belgians Bernard de Dryver and Claude Bourgoignie. This time it was not the engine, but the suspension that broke during the night, putting the car in the guard rails. Other races, like 1000 km Brands Hatch and the Fuji 1000 km ended again on engine failures. The sponsors lost interest and Gatoil got a new CEO. They suddenly stopped all activities in the team.
What to do. Graemiger helped John Salmona who had taken over the G604 and all the spare parts and worked with Jean-Denis Deletraz in the F3000, first at Michel Vaillant and later at First Racing.
He discovered in 1989 in the factory the 1:3 model of a new Le Mans prototype and he was contacted by Fred Stalder and his ROC factory. For the aerodynamics they got French specialist ex-Matra Robert Choulet in the team. They constructed the ROC 001 (originally a G606) and put a Cosworth 3.5 engine from Mader in the back. So in June 1991, the ROC 001 with drivers Pascal Fabre and Bernard Thuner were in LeMans. In the race, there were troubles with the gearbox and the engine and the car spent most of the time in the pits. When the rear suspension broke, it was a retirement in the 3th hour.
Sponsors stopped the money flow. When Fabre could not even take part in the last race in Mexico, beer-concern Corona also pulled out the plug. Stalder also had to declare bankruptcy. That was also the end of Graemigers motorsport dreams.Today, the remaining Cheetah cars are highly sought after by collectors and are occasionally seen in historic racing events, providing a glimpse into this niche chapter of Swiss motorsport history
