A complete motorsport solution
Borland Racing Developments is one of Australia’s few fully self-contained motorsport operations. From the design and construction of a racing car, through to the manufacture of spare parts, maintenance and even driver development, Borland Racing can execute an entire project from concept to completion.
The BRD factory is located in Braeside, Melbourne and is fully equipped with state-of-the-art technology for in-house machining and manufacturing.
History
Borland Racing Developments was formed in 1984 to prepare and engineer cars for the then-popular Australian Formula Two championship. Four championships were secured in the next five years, after which Michael Borland turned his attention to producing the Spectrum Formula Ford and Sabre Formula Vee racing cars.
The Spectrum chassis quickly established itself in the local Formula Ford market, taking a hard-fought second place for Jason Bargwanna in the 1996 national series.
A dominant 1-2 in the 1998 Formula Ford Championship for Adam Macrow and Christian Jones (son of 1980 F1 World Champion, Alan Jones) signaled the Spectrum chassis’ arrival as a major contender. The strength and popularity of the chassis grew with ongoing development and since 2004, the Spectrum has been the most consistently successful brand in Australian Formula Ford racing.
The Spectrum has scored more championship titles, pole positions, race wins, fastest laps and lap records than its rivals in Australian competition during this period. Chaz Mostert underlined the superiority of the Spectrum chassis when he dominated the 2010 championship in his Spectrum 012.
In 2000, a New Zealand title to Phil Hellebrekers was the first international crown for the marque. In 2006 a Spectrum model 011 was built for the UK championship. On the famous Brands Hatch GP circuit, John Martin took a resounding victory in the chassis’ debut weekend. This momentous win was the impetus to appoint a UK agent in Mark Bailey Racing Ltd, which culminated in leading UK championship team Kevin Mills Racing switching to the Spectrum chassis for the 2008 season. With pole positions and race wins with KMR in 2008 and 2009, Spectrums are regular front runners in the UK championship.
In 2013, BRD formed a relationship with Canadian Entrepreneur Michael Duncalfe, owner of the Exclusive Management organisation. The result was the formation of Exclusive Autosport, which became the importer and distributor for Spectrum chassis in Canada and North America.
From 2018 BRD expanded our Distributors to form an association with Greenvale FCP Inc, the principle being Mike Scanlan, a long time supporter of the Spectrum Chassis. Mike Scanlan is now the sole Distributor of Spectrum Racing Cars and parts for North America and Exclusive Management Inc continues to supply the Canadian market. With over 25 cars in action between Canada and North America we are proud to see our Spectrum chassis compete and win with the best the world has to offer.
Whilst building its reputation as a championship winning team and constructor, BRD continues to develop a thriving business as a specialist fabricator. This side of the business is kept busy meeting the demands of Daytona Sportscar production, historic restoration projects and production of specialty parts for the motor racing industry.
In 2007, the Borland factory was doubled in size to accommodate the existing workload and to provide capacity for new projects. Among these projects were the Spectrum F2000 “wings and slicks” vehicle for the US market, and the Sabre 02 Formula Vee 1600. A more recent special project has been the V8-powered Formula Thunder 5000 car which, after BRD was heavily involved in delivering the working prototype, has now taken off as the Garry Rogers Motorsport production built S5000.
In the last few years, Borland has continued refining the Spectrum Formula Ford chassis, and in 2017 the latest Spectrum 015 chassis hit the track in the Australian Formula Ford Series, scoring two race wins on debut at Sandown. More than 15x Spectrum 015 chassis have been built and delivered to our domestic and global markets.
