Slim Borgudd obituary: the F1 driver who drummed for ABBA
Slim Borgudd, who has died at the age of 76, was a Grammy award-winning drummer whose friendship with ABBA helped propel him to Formula 1 with ATS and Tyrrell. But the Swedish musician found his greatest racing success in truck racing
Borgudd brought ABBA branding to ATS F1 team in 1981
Bernard Cahier/Getty Images
Slim Borgudd 1946 – 2023
Tommy Karl-Edvard “Slim” Borgudd was both a Swedish rock drummer and for two seasons a Formula 1 driver with the name of ABBA emblazoned down the side of his cars. But he certainly made more money and won more fans when he became one of the stars of truck racing in its heyday in the 1990s. He won four European Truck Championship titles driving the mighty Mobil-backed Volvo White.
For the last decade or so he had based himself in Coventry from where he ran his own sports car team, Slim Racing, and had a reputation as a good race engineer, coach and test driver. He carried on racing on an occasional basis until he was sixty and died aged 76 after a battle with dementia.
Borgudd acquired his nickname when he was in the Merchant Navy as a teenager. His ship docked in New Orleans and he went to a club where jazz legend and pianist Memphis Slim was supposed to be playing, except his drummer had damaged his wrist. Slim was already a dab hand on the snares and his shipmates offered him up as a replacement. The session went well and Memphis Slim told him he was Little Slim. It stuck and the Little was later dropped. Sixteen years later he was to jam again with Memphis Slim in Helsinki.
Borgudd made his Tyrrell F1 debut at Kyalami in 1982
Bernard Cahier/Getty Images
Tommy Borgudd was born on November 26, 1946 on the southern Swedish island of Borgholm, in the Baltic Sea. One of his early memories was watching Stirling Moss race at Karlskoga. In 1968 on a tour to UK with the blues rock-inspired band Made in Sweden, he met jazz musician Chris Barber who sold him an old Lotus 22 Formula Junior car for £900. He took himself off to the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School to learn how to drive it. The Lotus was shipped back to Sweden and converted into a Formula Ford car. At Club level he won 16 races but it was in 1972 that his career started to take off, racing in the Swedish Touring Car Championship in a Hillman Imp. He was runner-up in class the series in 1975 and the following year second overall in a Volvo.
He switched back to single-seaters initially in Formula Ford with Royale and raced in the European FF Championship. In 1978 he contested the European Formula 3 Championship and finished 11th. For 1979 he had a newer Ralt RT3 and he won the Swedish Championship as well as finishing third in the hotly contested European Championship. Over a period of three years he had hired no fewer than 10 different Formula 3 cars.
Slim Borgudd, Grammy-winning drummer
Prior to this he had carved a reputation as one of Sweden’s best drummers with groups such as the Lea Riders Group and then Made in Sweden, with bandmates Jojje Wadeniuis and Bo Haggstrom. The album Made in Sweden with Love was a big hit in Sweden in 1968 and they won the Swedish Grammy for Best Band in 1969 and 1970.
They recorded another live album at the famous Stockholm music venue the Golden Circle. Made in Sweden was considered a progressive jazz-rock supergroup in their home country and were active until 1977. Slim then formed a third group, Solar Plexus, and they made four albums. Jojje then left to join the famous US band Blood, Sweat and Tears.
ABBA connection paves way to F1
The two strands of Borgudd’s life merged because he was friendly with ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson when they were still the Hootenanny Singers. After ABBA was born, Slim was a regular session drummer for the super group. ABBA allowed Slim to use their name in his racing exploits and, although no money passed hands, the association was useful in his quest for sponsorship money and publicity.
After failing to fund a Formula 2 programme when Marlboro pulled out in 1980 Borgudd managed to scrape together the budget to join the ATS team run by the idiosyncratic wheel magnate Gunther Schmid in 1981. When he arrived at the Bicester workshops for a seat fitting a few days before this first race, he only found two people there, the rest had walked out.
He managed to persuade his old F3 team boss Roger Heavens to join along with a few mechanics and somehow made his Formula 1 debut at the ripe old age of 34 at the 1981 San Marino Grand Prix. He outqualified his team-mate Jan Lammers and eventually finished 13th. There was better and worse to come. He missed out on qualifying for the next four races but then finished a very solid sixth at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The rest of the season was scruffy, a tenth at Zandvoort in the Dutch Grand Prix the only finish.
What looked like a move up for 1982, partnering Michele Alboreto at Tyrrell was short-lived. He took the 011 to 16th in South Africa, 7th in Brazil and 10th at Long Beach before the funds ran out and he was replaced by Brian Henton. He was back where he had been several times before – without a drive.
For the next few seasons there were just the occasion outings in events as diverse as the 1984 Macau GP where and placed 6th and he just failed to qualify for the 1987 Le Mans 24 Hours in a Volvo-powered Tiga.
Borgudd joined forces with Gunter Schmidt at ATS - with recruitment his first task
Grand Prix Photo
Borgudd en route to his only points finish at Silverstone
Grand Prix Photo
Funds ran out at Tyrrell
Don Morley/Getty Images
Back to winning ways in truck racing
Borgudd turned to truck racing soon after the first championship was formed, quickly becoming one of the star drivers when he joined the “Heavyweight Heroes” in 1986 driving for Ian Buchan’s smart West Coast Diesel outfit. With the American Volvo White “conventional” chassis initially with a two-stroke Detroit Diesel engine he was soon winning races beating the European cab-over designs. With top technician Andy Young engineering the beast he took the European Truck Racing Championship in 1986, 1987 and 1988 before it became an official FIA series.
He won Britain’s most prestigious truck event, the Mobil Superprix in 1987, 1988 and 1990, succeeding in titanic battles with factory BP backed Mercedes-Benz of Steve Parrish and factory MAN of Gerd Korber.
In 1991 he won the British Championship and was second in the FIA series — one of the six top-five finishes he recorded between then and 1997, including a championship win in 1995.
Borgudd racing at Thruxton in 1997
Phil Cole/Allsport via Getty Images
Borgudd didn’t restrict himself to truck racing, he won outright the 1989 Willhire 24 Hours with Mark Hale, won in the Rover 216GTi Cup, had podium finishes in 500km touring car races at Wellington and Pukekoh in New Zealand. In 1994 he won the Nordic Touring Car Championship in a factory Mazda team run by Silverstone-based Roger Dowson Racing .
After some UK Porsche Club racing in 2003 he joined Radical Sportscars as their Overseas Distribution Manager and he raced Radicals in the States winning at the 2006 Sebring Winterfest. He then set up Slim Racing to campaign Radicals in both the UK and Europe.
Slim Borgudd was a quiet understated man who had overcome many obstacles and setbacks in his long and varied career, but for many, he will always be the ABBA-sponsored drummer in Formula 1.
Motor Sport sends its condolences to his wife Alex.
