Giovanola Frères SA was a prominent steel manufacturing company based in Monthey, Switzerland.
It was known for building electrical power stations, water storage tanks, pipelines, boilers, highway bridges, submarines, ski lifts and many other steel products.
In the mid-1980s two Giovanola engineers, Claude Mabillard and Walter Bolliger, developed a new type of roller coaster track system utilizing a box beam spine.
A year later Shockwave at Six Flags Magic Mountain, a stand-up coaster, opened utilizing the same box-beam track.
GARW filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001 after the completion of Titan at Six Flags Over Texas which ended the roller-coaster-building business.
[11] As the gravity clamp does not meet modern safety standards, European law requires all systems in Europe built with this design to cease operations by 2025.