A brief look back at the unlikely career of His Royal Majesty Prince Leopold of Bavaria in the volatile world of car racing. During his career, he has won more than 120 races.
Prince Leopold started his career with rallying and in 1969 moved to touring car racing winning the North American Championships with Porsche in 1972. In 1984 he also took part in the legendary sports car endurance race 24 Hours of Le Mans together with Walter Brun and Bob Akin, finishing fourth.
In 1986, Leopold became a factory driver for the Munich based car manufacturer BMW and although he retired from competitive racing in 1998, he remains involved with the BMW racing team as an adviser.
As well as competing in Europe and America, Prince Leopold competed in Australia also with a drive the 1984 James Hardie 1000 driving a Group A BMW 635CSi for Frank Gardner’s factory backed team partnering former Formula One world champion Denny Hulme. In Australian touring car racing Group A was only a minor class 1984 before taking over as top class in 1985. After a troubled week which included the Prince crashing the BMW at the top of the mountain due to a lost front wheel, the pair finished the race in 15th place and 2nd in class, 4 laps behind the class winning TWR Rover and 15 laps behind the race winning Holden Commodore.
