Boro F1 Car
F1 has always had its giants from the early days of the competition, for example Scuderia Ferrari is for 75 years competing in the sport, McLaren more than 50 years.
However, hidden between those big names are small teams that came, struggled and vanished almost before people noticed.
One of those forgotten stories is Boro, a Dutch outfit that only raced in 1976 and 1977.
Their car, the BORO 001, never scored a single point, still left a quirky mark on F1 history.
From Burglar Alarms to Formula 1
This was not a team built by racing royalty, it was the idea of two brothers, Bob and Rody hoogenboon, who ran a company making security alarm systems in Netherlands.
They also named the team with their names like first two letters, BO and RO, Bob and Rody.
However, they were not engineers, they weren’t ex-drivers, they were businessman with a dream.
Through a messy legal battle, they ended up with a car that originally belonged to Ensign, a British privateer team.
It was the Ensign N175, designed by Mo Nunn and Dave Baldwin, The brothers took it, slapped their name on the side and the Boro 001 was born.
So imagine it all started from a tiny workshop in Bovenkerk, a Dutch village, suddenly trying to take on Ferrari and Lotus.
NO WIND TUNNEL or testing program, just grit and hope.
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The Car Itself
The 001 was not a radical machine, it ran the same Ford-Cosworth DFV 3.0-liter V8 engine that almost everyone else used with a Hewland gearbox.
The chassis was aluminium, fairly standard for the time, nothing about it screamed innovation. But it looked smart in its white and red paint carrying the HB company logo.
For Dutch fans, just seeing that car line up on a Grand Prix grid was something to be proud of.
Larry Perkins: The Battler in 1976
The first driver to get a shot in the Boro was Larry Perkins, Australian driver, who was still trying to make his name in Europe.
The team’s debut came at the Spanish Grand Prix, in 1976, they finished in P13 which was not bad at all but 3+ laps behind, but if you look at the results also Ferrari driver Clay Regazzoni finished +3 laps, in P11.
However, they next stop was at Zolder, with a great result finished P8, just +1 lap behind the winner.
Over the course of their short stint, luck was rarely on their side, disqualifications and breakdowns meant the little white-and-red car almost never reached the finish line.
Also check out: Forgotten Stewart GP Team: Short-Lived but Changed F1 Forever
1977: A Flicker Before the End
In 1977, Boro gave the drive to Brian Henton, a fast Brit who never quite managed to stick in F1. By then, the 001 was outdated. Bigger teams had moved on, and the little Dutch car was falling further behind.
Henton’s most memorable day came at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort. In front of the home crowd, he spun the car but was pushed back onto the track.
That might sound harmless, but in F1 rules, outside assistance meant disqualification. Just like that, the team’s home race ended in embarrassment.
They tried again at Monza, but Henton failed to qualify. That was it. The team faded out, sold off what they had, and disappeared from the sport.
Forgotten, But Not Gone quickly
On paper, Boro’s record looks like nothing. Eight races entered, six starts, zero points. But numbers don’t tell the whole story.
Boro represented something we don’t see anymore in Formula 1: dreamers who dared to jump in, even if they weren’t ready.
Two brothers from a small Dutch town, putting their company name on a car and going up against the biggest names in motorsport.
After they pulled out, their cars and equipment ended up forming part of Theodore Racing, another small team with a colorful history. The Boro name was gone, but a tiny piece of it lived on.
Why we still talk about this team?
These kinds of stories reminds us that F1 is not just about champions and trophies, it is also about the outsiders who kept the grid alive.
Teams like Boro did not win in F1 but they brought variety, color and a bit of chaos to the sport.
The Boro 001, might not be remembered by casual fans, but for those who love the underdog tales, it is a symbol of that wild ’70s era, when anyone brave enough, could buy a Cosworth engine, paint a car and have a go at F1.
Also check out: The Story of Formula One’s Shortest-Lived Team
