Carrosserie Hermann Graber

Graber had a particularly close relationship with the British firm of Alvis, providing the manufacturer with bespoke and elegant if expensive bodies for almost twenty years, mostly during the 1950s and 1960s.

In the early 1930s France had lost to Britain its position as Europe's largest automobile producer, and Britain would retain the top slot until the early 1950s so it made sense for Graber, after the war, to concentrate on special car bodies designed to complement some of the more exclusive chassis produced by the UK auto-industry, which they did, especially in respect of Alvis and Bentley, Aston Martin, Lagonda, Rolls-Royce and Rover as makers of cars with separate chassis In 1946 Graber made his first Alvis body and by 1953 acquired the Swiss distribution rights for Alvis Cars.

Meanwhile, in central Switzerland Graber continued to build to order special bodied cars based on Alvis chassis at a rate of not more than ten per year.

When customers requested improvements, Graber was happy not merely to produce special bodies but also to redesign or adapt aspects of the chassis and running gear.

In 2001 the residuum of the business was acquired by a well-known Swiss classic car restorer named Markus Scharnhorst, and relocated to Toffen.