The name Galmer is a portmanteau of the surnames of its two founders — Rick Galles and Alan Mertens. Though the program was American-based and commissioned by the Galles Racing team, the cars were physically assembled at the Galmer Engineering facility in Bicester, England, with Mertens leading the technical side of the operation.
The Galmer chassis program emerged at a period in CART history when interest in in-house chassis development was at its peak. Teams such as Penske and Truesports had previously pursued similar programs, and Galmer's creation fit within that broader movement of race teams seeking a technical edge through proprietary hardware rather than customer chassis from established suppliers.
The chassis made its full-time competition debut in the 1992 CART season, fielded by Galles Racing for drivers Al Unser Jr. and Danny Sullivan. The 1992 campaign proved to be the high-water mark for the program. Unser Jr. scored 15 top-ten finishes in 16 races — his only race outside the top ten was an eleventh-place result — finishing third in the final championship standings. Sullivan recorded 11 top-tens, placing seventh in points.
The Galmer won two CART races during the 1992 season. One victory came at the Indianapolis 500, and one was recorded by Danny Sullivan elsewhere in the campaign.
Despite this competitive showing, the decision to shelve the Galmer project was reportedly made on the very morning of the 1992 Indianapolis 500 — the race the car went on to win.
The defining moment in Galmer's history came at the 1992 Indianapolis 500, when Al Unser Jr. took the victory in what was recorded as the closest finish in the race's history at the time. The official margin of victory over Scott Goodyear was listed as 0.043 seconds, though USAC officials later recalculated the true gap as 0.0331 seconds. The official record stood as the closest finish in Indianapolis 500 history until 2026.
The Galmer chassis possessed one notable technical distinction in the 1992 CART field: all other competitors mounted their scoring transponders in the left side pod, but the Galmer's design left no room for that placement. Unser Jr. and Sullivan instead had their transponders located in the nosecone of the car. This difference contributed to the ambiguity that required officials to re-examine Unser Jr.'s winning margin after the race.
Following the 1992 season, Valvoline purchased the race-winning Galmer chassis driven by Unser Jr., and the car has since been used for display at various public engagements.
The 1992 season was the only year the Galmer chassis was used in a full-time capacity. In 1993, the car appeared on a part-time basis with driver Dominic Dobson but proved uncompetitive and was retired from CART competition entirely. Only three drivers — Al Unser Jr., Danny Sullivan, and Dominic Dobson — ever raced a Galmer in CART, yet the chassis won two races in that limited campaign, giving it one of the strongest win rates of any chassis in the series during its era.
At the end of the 1993 season, Rick Galles sold the company's stake to Bruce McCaw of PacWest Racing. Galmer subsequently provided research and development support to McCaw's PacWest team over the following five years.
In 1993, Galmer made an unsuccessful attempt to enter Formula One through a takeover of the defunct Brabham team. Financial difficulties caused the effort to collapse before it reached fruition, and Galmer never competed in Grand Prix racing.