The team originated as Onyx Race Engineering in late 1978, founded by Mike Earle and Greg Field. Earle had accumulated extensive experience in open-wheel racing through Church Farm Racing in Formula 3, Formula 2, and Formula 5000, and the pair had previously worked together alongside driver David Purley in the LEC racing team. Their early partnership attempted a Formula 2 entry for 1979, which proved unsuccessful, before running semi-works March machinery for Johnny Cecotto and Riccardo Paletti in 1980 and 1981. Paletti's death at the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix halted Onyx's planned Formula One debut and marked the end of their first serious F1 ambitions.
Field subsequently sold his share to racing enthusiast Jo Chamberlain. The team regrouped by securing the contract to run the works March Formula 2 effort, gaining access to leading machinery, BMW engines, and Michelin tyres. Under that arrangement Onyx scored notable junior formula results: Emanuele Pirro finished third in the 1985 Formula 3000 championship and runner-up in 1986, before Stefano Modena won the 1987 Formula 3000 championship outright. That title served as the springboard for Earle's Formula One ambitions.
In September 1988, Paul Shakespeare purchased the majority of the team's shares, providing the capital for the F1 step. Belgian entrepreneur Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, owner of the financial company Moneytron, subsequently bought out Shakespeare and became the majority owner. The newly branded Onyx Grand Prix struck a deal for Ford V8 engines and Goodyear tyres, with respected engineer Alan Jenkins — previously of McLaren — designing the team's first car, the ORE-1. Stefan Johansson and young Belgian rookie Bertrand Gachot were signed as drivers.
Onyx's debut year was a mixture of promise and turbulence. The cars were completed only on the morning of their public launch and shipped immediately to Brazil, leaving no time for testing. Neither driver cleared pre-qualifying in the opening three rounds, and a testing accident destroyed one chassis before the Imola weekend. Progress began to show from Mexico onward, with Johansson qualifying and racing while Gachot consistently came close to making the grid.
The team's breakthrough came at the 1989 French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard. Both cars comfortably pre-qualified, both qualified in the top thirteen, and Johansson scored the team's first points with fifth place. The highlight of the season arrived at Portugal, where Johansson chose not to pit for tyres. After the leaders made their stops and both Williams cars retired following Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna's collision, Johansson inherited third place, crossing the line with no fuel remaining. It was the team's only podium and their last points finish. Gachot was replaced mid-season by JJ Lehto after a falling-out with Van Rossem. Onyx finished the season tenth in the Constructors' Championship with six points, enough to escape pre-qualifying for 1990.
Throughout 1989, Van Rossem's behaviour proved disruptive. He purchased a US$20 million business jet, made inflammatory public comments about Bernie Ecclestone and FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre, and was eventually banned from attending Grands Prix by Ecclestone. His reluctance to fund development slowed the car's progress through the second half of the year.
The 1990 season saw the team unravel. Van Rossem withdrew his Moneytron sponsorship and left the operation. Earle, Chamberlain, Field, and Jenkins all departed. Swiss collector and former racer Peter Monteverdi acquired fifty percent of the team, with Karl Foitek and Brune Frei taking smaller shares. The team arrived at the first two rounds still running the 1989 ORE-1, and neither driver — Lehto alongside Gregor Foitek, who had replaced Johansson — qualified for those races.
An updated ORE-1B appeared from the San Marino Grand Prix, and both cars qualified at Imola. Foitek's best result was seventh at Monaco, the team's only classified finish of note that year. Financial problems deepened continuously. Broken suspension components were reported to have been welded rather than replaced, and the team was said to have cannibalised parts from Monteverdi's personal sports car collection. Karl Foitek eventually withdrew his investment and barred his son from the car on safety grounds. Monteverdi renamed the outfit Monteverdi Onyx Formula One but the gesture changed nothing. The team withdrew from the championship at the Hungarian Grand Prix, having scored no points in 1990.
After a period running Arena Motorsport, Mike Earle attempted to revive the Onyx name for the 2014 World Touring Car Championship with a Ford Fiesta TC1, but the plan was abandoned in February 2014 due to lack of manufacturer support. A subsequent effort to build a Ford Focus ST for the 2015 TCR International Series saw the team contest only half the events before its assets were sold.
Onyx Grand Prix represents one of the more credible of the late 1980s Formula One backmarker operations. Jenkins's ORE-1 was considered a tidy design for the budget available, and Johansson's Portuguese podium — achieved through strategy rather than raw pace — gave the team its defining moment. The collapse under Van Rossem's ownership illustrated how financial instability could overwhelm a technically competent organisation, a pattern common to several small constructors of that era.