A full 1,800 horses are spurred out of the barn as the Formula 457 CC banks hard to starboard. Dire Straits’ 1985 hit “Money for Nothing” blares from the JL Audio system — 21 speakers, three 12-inch subwoofers and five amplifiers. The boat’s metallic gray paint glistens under the South Florida sun as we approach 50 knots.
This is the same stretch of offshore water where Formula founder Don Aronow tested the original model, the 233, 62 years prior. South Florida and Formula Boats would be intrinsically linked for more than a half-century, but today, the boats are built 1,281 miles to the northwest. Decatur, Ind., is home to the builder’s 575,000-square-foot factory, which turns out 250 boats each year.
Product design coordinator Ron Gephart was born and raised in Decatur. Moving from department to department, he knows every person, and sometimes members of their families. “Yeah, there are a lot of siblings that work here,” Gephart says at one spot. Minutes later, he stops to chat with another employee. “This is my brother, by the way.”
Formula president Scott Porter is much the same. “We think having family work together here is a positive,” he says. “Plus, how can we deter it when me and my siblings and now the third generation of our family all work here? I think dad always said, ‘You’re kind of tougher on your own family members than you are on your closest friends. So we get really good effort and family values.’ ”
Dad, in this case, refers to Formula patriarch Vic Porter. Aronow launched the brand, but Porter was its longtime steward, becoming the company’s sole owner in 1979.
Enduring Legacy
The shadow of Vic Porter looms inside the factory. One work station has two items pinned up: a photo of the employee and his wife on vacation, and Porter’s obituary. Porter was born in 1931 and raised in Decatur, becoming a serial entrepreneur long before that term was common. He worked as a volunteer firefighter, sold real estate, sold mobile homes, and owned an ice cream store and ice cream truck. Incredibly, that truck — restored to its original vintage — is at the factory, near a new center console.
A short stint selling boats led Porter to build dayboats with three employees in a converted ice cream locker. “I don’t think he ever really retired, but he would come in most days up until close to his death, and would walk the factory floor and continue talking to employees and just making sure that they knew that they were valued and to make sure they understood that what they do matters,” says grandson and third-generation Formula staffer Josh Porter. “I think he left a great legacy and was known as a great leader within the company, and a servant leader.”
Josh Porter says that for the family, the door to work for Formula was always open, but he never got pushed through it. For a time, he pursued a career in aeronautical engineering, earning a degree from Purdue University. He now applies his engineering knowledge to making Formula hulls fly.
“I remember coming here when I was in Boy Scouts and building Pinewood Derby cars,” he says. “This was our workshop. My earliest memories of being at the factory go back even further, though. That would be in elementary school when we had our Grandparents’ Day, when they get to come visit and take you out to lunch. I remember once I had Grandma and Grandpa take me to the boat factory for lunch. That was a big deal for me then.”
Josh Porter’s first two months back at Formula were spent on the factory floor. He did a rotation to see every work space. “And then I spent a good amount of time with our prototyping team on the new boat we were building at the time, to see what that looked like,” he says. “And then I finally came into the office and started doing engineering work.”
Before long, he was helping with the framework for Formula’s largest project to date, the 500 SSC. On boats like the 457, he had a hand in the angles, depth and position of the hull and its steps.
Pedigree of Performance
On the 457, Formula incorporated innovative doors on both sides of the console, aligned with the helm. At the push of a button, they open to deflect the wind flow that typically buffets anyone seated abaft the helm. It’s a feature that changes the entire experience.
These design elements were tested by the company’s sportfishing team — one of the most enviable jobs at Formula. This team competes in multiday tournaments in all sorts of sea conditions. Members live aboard, cook aboard and more, then bring back notebooks filled with design tweaks to make the boats stand out.
Among these “born-at-sea features” in the 457 are stowage for a Seabob painted to match the boat; an aft grill with a foldout cutting board and built-in utensil stowage; dual transom doors with a fold-out step in the gunwale for easy boarding from a bulkhead; and a power-out cooler in the cockpit that holds 180 cans. The boat also has a power-up windshield, 24 phone chargers and 36 cup holders.
Anyone interested in learning more about Formula’s boats, or about the 500 hardworking members of Formula’s family, can take a tour for themselves.
This article was originally published in the September 2024 issue.
