Interview: Ed Leavens

Ed Leavens’ career in racing could be compared to an iceberg where 9/10ths of the details of his career lie beneath the surface. He raced from the mid-1950s to around 1962, but he gave it all up for his business of selling cars in London, Ontario, Canada. Here was a race driver whose teammates were such people as Stirling Moss and Roy Salvadori, and he competed against Juan Manuel Fangio and Roger Penske, but he weighed his chances of achieving the top rank in the racing world and chose his business career instead. During his time, he raced Healeys for the Donald Healey team at Sebring and Nassau and the Austin Sprite streamliner at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Our John Wright recently caught up with this semi-retired businessman at his home in Arva, outside the southern Ontario city of London, to learn more about his surprising racing career.

Ed, you told me that although you are a Canadian citizen you were actually born in the USA?