ED LESLIE

Racing great Ed Leslie has passed away in his native California and leaves a legacy of an impressive career in ‘sports car racing’, as it became known during the 1960s.

Ed started racing at the very beginning of sport car racing on the West Coast in the early ‘60s and very quickly made a name for himself as a very competitive driver against faster machinery and the very top international drivers. A number of fastest laps in a Bay-Area-built Webster, and a Triumph TR4 attracted the attention of Carroll Shelby, who made available to him a 289 Cobra in 1964. 

Following successes in the Cobra and also a variety of cars during the mid-sixties, Ed drove for Mercury Team Cougar and Team Penske Camaro running up front in the Trans-Am series during its height in 1969. 

Ed Leslie was also very accomplished in endurance racing, competing in seven 12-24 hour races and finishing them all. At Daytona in 1969, he finished second overall with Lothar Motschhenbacher in the Lola T70-Chevrolet coupe for James Garner’s American International Racing. 

Retiring from professional racing in 1970 to concentrate on his prospering Toyota dealership, Ed kept in contact with his friends made in racing, including Jim Hall and Roger Penske.

One of Ed Leslie’s achievements early on in his racing career was in the 1963 Sebring 12 Hours where he drove one of the Jaguar Lightweight E-types (S850660) with Frank Morrill for West-Coast US Jaguar importer Kjell Qvale. Despite various dramas during the race, Ed and Frank finished ahead of the Cunningham entries in 7th place overall and also netted a class win.

Ed was re-united with the Lightweight E-type in 1999 at Laguna Seca, having not seen it since he raced it at the track in 1963. Surprised at how original it remained, he recalled in great detail the modifications and battle scars it carried from the racing miles he put on it more than thirty-five years previously.

Ed Leslie was a fast, enormously talented racing driver. He was also a good-hearted, solid, thoroughly likeable person who loved his racing. 


31 March 2005

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