For our Kiwi readers the name Leo Leonard needs no introduction. He is a living legend of New Zealand motorsport. For Australian AMC readers he has featured in many articles over the years but never the headline act – which suits the quiet and modest South Islander.Yet on his day he was the absolute equal to legendary racers such as Allan Moffat and fellow Kiwi Jim Richards. His drives in memorable cars like the E38/E49 Valiant Chargers and the iconic PDL Mustang I and II are remembered by Kiwi enthusiasts to this day. His record in the Pukekohe 500/1000, New Zealand’s equivalent to our Bathurst 500/1000, is unequalled. Seven victories in total, eight if you include his final victory (that was part of a series and not a standalone), in Valiants, Chargers, Ford Fairmonts and Vauxhall Victors(!) on the challenging Auckland circuit attested to both his racing and mechanical skills.
It’s such a pity that he was never really able to show his sublime abilities in Australia. In eight Bathurst 1000 starts he never really had the top-class equipment to show his wares. However, there were a few ‘what-ifs, such as knocking back drives with the crack BMW M3 brigade and Peter Brock in 1987…
The 81 year-old Timaru native has never been profiled in-depth until now. But here at AMC we believe he is the very essence of a Muscle Man – King Leo never trundled around the track in shopping trollies! Read on to discover more about the ‘Kiwi Brock.’
Early days
Timaru is a small town of 48,000 on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, with Christchurch to the north and Dunedin to the south. The largest town in the South Canterbury region, it is both an agricultural service town and NZ’s second largest fishing port. Like its Australian sister city, Orange, in NSW’s Central West, it has a proud motor racing history. Timaru International Motor Raceway, formerly known as Levels, was opened in 1967 after the Waimate 50 Street Race had run its course, and its notable racers include the Sprague family, Graeme Richardt and, of course, the subject of this Muscle Man profile, Leo Leonard.
Leonard was actually born in nearby Temuka in 1940, but moved to Timaru as a child. As a young boy he excelled in rugby, playing for South Canterbury at representative level, but he was fascinated with cars and his fate was sealed, as he explained to AMC recently:
“I answered an advert for a boy to work the school holidays at the local garage. I got the job on the toss of a coin. The boss was Ernie Sprague, a famous racer of the day. So I’m not only in the motor trade but I inherited an interest in motorsport! I was 14 (soon to turn 15 and legally permitted to work.) I never went back to school.”
Ernie Sprague was a well-known and successful racer in the 1950s and ‘60s. He raced a 1935 ex-Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo P3 Grand Prix car and then a 1948 supercharged Maserati 4CLT racing car before moving onto production cars. His dealership started modestly with used cars but by the 1960s he was selling and also racing Jaguars. Leonard started off as a gopher and attended all the race meetings with the Sprague family. Inevitably he caught the motor racing bug.
At the age of 16 Leonard bought a ’32 Ford V8 Coupe and hotted up the engine. He joined the South Canterbury Car Club (which survives to this day) and competed in dirt track, hillclimbs and quarter-mile sprints in a variety of vehicles – Buckler, Morgan and Citroën Light 15.
“We were never competitive but we just jumped into anything that was available or the budget would permit. My first circuit race was the Waimate 50 in the Morgan in 1959 followed by the Wigram
