Toleman was born in the Union of South Africa and adopted as a child. His grandfather, Edward Toleman, had founded the Toleman Group in 1926 as a vehicle transport business delivering Ford cars from Dagenham; under Ted's chairmanship from 1966 the company grew into one of Britain's four largest car transport operations, moving upwards of 600,000 vehicles a year. Every championship, speed record, and race win he achieved was, in his own framing, a commercial argument for British engineering.
His life was marked by personal tragedy: his brother Bob died in a Formula Ford accident at Snetterton Circuit in 1976, and his son Gary was fatally shot by carjackers in South Africa in 2003, prompting Toleman to relocate. He pursued business ventures in Australia and the Philippines and died in Manila on 10 April 2024 at the age of 86.
Toleman Racing first appeared in motorsport in British Formula Ford before stepping up to Formula Two in 1978 with a March chassis, then switching to Ralt cars in 1979. With drivers Brian Henton and Derek Warwick the team finished first and second in the 1980 European Formula Two championship. Among the young engineers the team assembled during this period were Rory Byrne and Pat Symonds, both of whom would remain central figures as the organisation transformed through Benetton and Renault.
The team announced its Formula One entry for the 1981 season. Three years of gradual development followed, with the outfit growing from a team that failed to pre-qualify into a regular points-scoring contender by the end of 1983. The decisive moment came in 1984 when Toleman signed Ayrton Senna, the reigning British Formula Three champion. Senna scored points on his second and third outings, then produced one of the most memorable drives in Formula One history at the rain-soaked Monaco Grand Prix — chasing down Alain Prost's leading McLaren before the race was red-flagged with two laps remaining. His second place there was Toleman's best-ever Formula One result. Two further podium finishes followed that season, at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril. The 1984 campaign produced Toleman's highest-ever constructors' championship position of seventh.
Following Senna's departure for Lotus in 1985, the team's performance declined significantly. Teo Fabi claimed a remarkable pole position at the 1985 German Grand Prix in wet conditions. The team was sold to the Benetton clothing company before the 1986 season, completing 70 grand prix entries and accumulating 26 World Championship points and three podiums across its five-season Formula One life.
Drivers who raced for Toleman in Formula One included Brian Henton, Derek Warwick, Bruno Giacomelli, Johnny Cecotto, Stefan Johansson, Pierluigi Martini, and Piercarlo Ghinzani. The engineering talent that passed through the team — Byrne as chief designer and Symonds as race engineer — went on to define the championship-winning Benetton and Renault operations: Byrne designed the cars with which Michael Schumacher won the 1994 and 1995 championships, while Symonds worked alongside Fernando Alonso's 2005 and 2006 championship campaigns. The team lineage continued through Lotus F1 and back to Renault ownership before rebranding as Alpine in 2021.
Parallel to his Formula One involvement, Toleman built a remarkable powerboat racing career. He came to offshore racing in 1978 and by 1979 had acquired controlling interest in Cougar Marine, the Southampton-based catamaran manufacturer that had been designing winning offshore boats since 1969. He applied the engineering discipline and materials knowledge from his Formula racing programme to Cougar's designs and opened production and servicing operations in Miami and later the Philippines.
Racing under the Toleman Group banner, he won the British Class 1 Championship in 1980 and the European Class 1 title the same year, then took the Australian Championship in 1981. He retained the British Class 1 title in 1981, 1982, and 1983 — four consecutive British championships in total. During this period Cougar catamarans won 17 consecutive races on the US offshore circuit.
Alongside championship racing, Toleman and his American throttleman Harold Smith mounted a campaign against the Class 1 offshore world speed record. On 26 September 1981 on Southampton Water they set a new mark at 97.44 mph. A year later, at Lake Windermere, they broke their own record by more than 12 mph to establish a new mark of 110.4 mph.
In 1985 Toleman co-organised and co-crewed the Virgin Atlantic Challenger transatlantic crossing attempt in a 65-foot Cougar-built aluminium catamaran backed by Richard Branson. The nine-man crew departed New York on 13 August 1985 and was inside the record time for the SS United States — which had held the transatlantic crossing record since 1952 — when the boat took on water and sank approximately 130 miles short of the Bishop Rock lighthouse off the Scilly Isles. All nine crew were rescued. The project recruited Steve Ridgway and Chris Moss into Branson's sphere; Ridgway subsequently became Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic Airways, and Moss went on to found the Orange telecommunications brand.
Away from powerboating, Toleman also competed in three Paris-Dakar Rallies and entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Tom Walkinshaw in 1978.