Hermann Graber took over his father’s wheel-making business in 1924 and quickly redirected it to building car bodies. ‘Auto Carrosserie Hermann Graber’ was founded in 1926, and was to become Switzerland’s most famous coachbuilder, known for craftsmanship and understated styling. Dressing cars such as Alfa Romeo, Bentley, Bugatti, Duesenberg, Packard and others, Graber became especially admired for refined cabriolets and coupés, winning the St. Moritz Concours d’Elegance with a Graber-bodied Panhard & Levassor, which helped make the name known well beyond Switzerland. After the war, at the end of the coachbuilt era, the company continued to gain a reputation for tasteful updates and conversions, especially body conversions in an era when open cars were less common.

Hermann Graber died in 1970, and with that the production of special-bodied cars came to an end. By then, roughly 800 Graber- bodied vehicles had been built.

The business continued under Graber’s widow as a body-repair and maintenance workshop, eventually becoming the official Ferrari importer in Switzerland. In 2001 the remaining business was acquired by the Traber family and moved to Toffen, where it became Graber Sportgarage AG, the well-known restoration, sales and race preparation specialists that we all know today. This year’s centenary marks not just the survival, but a remarkably long continuity of Swiss quality automotive craftsmanship.