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Leo Pruneau - Holden Chief Designer | SHANNONS DESIGN TO DRIVEWAY | Ep 1
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- čas přidán 18. 10. 2022
- “Everybody thought Brock designed it. Peter never even saw the damn car until the covers came off.”
When we ask Leo a question, you know you are going to get an answer!
From Missouri to Melbourne - via London, is the story of Leo Pruneau. From selling Studebakers as a young man in the family business, then as a young graduate from the Art Centre College of Design in Los Angeles, to designing the 1965 Chevrolet Impala Coupe - Leo was destined to have an impact on the car world. He designed the US Solaris - a design which would ultimately become the Holden HD and a style that influenced every GM model globally at the time.
When Leo arrived in Australia, fortunately, he liked what he saw, and when Leo got behind the design desk, something special was always on its way.
Only Leo could create a luxury Holden Statesman Caprice inspired by Rolls Royce and Aston Martin - with a hand-made front grille. When Holden discovered they had 600 plus HX coupe panels left over - they needed a quick and cheerful special offer package. Instead, Leo raided the spare parts and some of the wheels and accessories from the GM world and produced the now highly collectible LE Monaro coupe.
Leo was never a guy who did things by halves. When Holden decided to adopt the smaller Opel Rekord based VB Commodore, it was Leo who styled the early Australian VB - VC - VH and VK Commodores - including the HDT Brock Commodore.
In his typical fashion, Leo speaks out on Peter Brock in this episode. “With the VB HDT Commodore, everyone thinks Brocky did them. Peter never even saw the car until the covers came off.”
Watch as Leo reveals how after an afternoon visit from the Holden race team boss Harry Firth, he created the legend of the A9X styling with a bonnet-scoop design he borrowed from Corvette and how together with the A9X flared wheel guards, Holden created a huge explosion in modified customer vehicles. This started the HDT and HSV customised vehicles.
Although Leo Pruneau retired from Holden in 1988, he says “I could not get the gasoline out of my blood.” And nothing has changed to this day.
“Shannons are proud to commission this landmark series to celebrate the rich design heritage of the cars we all know and love. While Shannons plays a key role as Australia’s leading insurer for motoring enthusiasts, we also believe it is very important to preserve our automotive history for future generations” said Mark Behr, Executive Manager, Marketing for Shannons.
With a stroke of a pencil this bloke created iconic and culture defining Australian classics. Man’s a legend
What a legend, bless the man. Regardless of where he is from, he is part of our own car culture and a beloved member of it.
Considering how long hes lived in aus hes as Australian as anyone else
Good to see Leo is still with us! 🤠👍
Yes. Totally agree. Still remembers everything like it was yesterday.
A terrific production covering possibly Australia's best ever car designer. I met Leo at the 2018 launch of the Aussie car design book Crayon To Cad at Shannon's new Melbourne offices. I asked Leo to sign my copy of the book, 40 odd years ago now I was so impressed with his WB Statesman Caprice design I bought two an Asteroid Silver one & a Venetian red one, same colors as the 2 in the sales brochure. Red one was stolen & I bought an identical Venetian red one to replace it, I still own & drive the second one. Leo said that the WB Caprice was the absolute high point of his career that everything about the car was pure quality, no expense spared. Having owned three I can attest to the durability and quality of these cars. They are the ONLY new cars I have ever bought. Leo told me that night, he was given an open cheque to build the best luxury car he could in the grand days of Holden, he went over the fine points and some of the not so obvious hidden virtues of the WB's as well. Back when Holden was the bestselling car brand in Australia. His WB's quality could match or exceed the European luxury car brands eg the Mercedes w126 s class. Some years later the VQ Statesman & Caprice were being designed and a 45% reduction in the production cost of goods was required. Never again would we see such pure quality in an Australian designed & built luxury sedan, no wonder Leo uses his WB as his signature statement to this day. I have 2 friends with the most expensive Mercedes of the 1980's, 560SEL luxury sedans both are 7 years younger than my WB Caprice, both have less milage on them, however both have component failures, wiring failures and trim pieces that have fallen to pieces due to being made cheaply. There was and is way more integrity in the design and build quality of the WB's than most people would ever realize. So, thank you Leo for 40 years of happy, TOTAL quality luxury motoring in a car that's still just perfect.
Just arrived home from an interstate trip filming an episode, the bags and the gear where still in the hallway here at home, the kettle didn't even get a chance to go on for a coffee - because this Shannons production came through. Yep, as soon as I received the link, my eyes never left the screen. I love stuff like this. Producing weekly TV episodes of Classic Restos, no one more than myself appreciates how difficult it can be sourcing original "behind the scenes" & historical automotive footage.
Again, this is where Shannons perform head & shoulders to bring us this priceless production. "The Vauxhall was Piss Weak" - how cool was that coming from Leo 🙂. He was used to bigger cars outlandishly drawn, and that was the tradition he kept styling for, our albeit tiny, global automotive market here in Australia. To Mark Behr & his team at Shannons, congratulations on this fantastic episode ONE of SEVEN Design To Driveway. It was informative, interesting, and of course emotional. Well done. Fletch, Classic Restos TV. 👍
Great to hear Aussie vernacular with an American accent, but not put on. Leo is more Aussie than most.
Thanks Fletch. It was a big effort from the team and we are very pleased with the outcome. So important to preserve our automotive history. Glad you enjoyed it.
Classic Restos such an awesome series 👍
I liked how Leo said how things were. Few choice words in there as well. No nonsense attitude and always gave a straight answer throughout the episode. I've heard a lot about Leo pruneau and his many achievements which included the Commodore, Statesman Deville and Caprice, Monaro GTS, Torana and Gemini as well as the LE. Great man and sounds like he doesn't mind a good yarn. Bloody legend.
This is absolute GOLD....Just shows what ambition can do and where it can take you...
Leo the Legend, what a guy. Totally honest, straight up, not afraid of calling a spade a spade. We need more people like him. Thank you for all your hard work over the years, Leo.
Leo is a national treasure, regardless of his place of birth. How many stylists has he influenced? The shutting down of Holden was a criminal act by both GM and Tony Abbott/Joe Hockey.
BTW, in the late 1980s I drove the bridesmaids around in an HZ Caprice for my cousin's wedding. It belonged to the late Clem Orton from Murmungee in NE Victoria. He told me that it it was an ex GMH exec car and had belonged to Leo Pruneau. It was green with black leather trim, a black vinyl top and sunroof. Was it Leo's? Clem was a gentleman farmer and a wounded WW2 belly gunner in B25s. Man we walk in the shadow of giants!
2017 Caprice daily and HQ ute project.
It wasn't GM or the governments fault for the closure of Holden. It is simply down to the Australian car market being so diversified. The top selling model vehicle sales volume here is only 50,000 a year. For any car maker to build cars here would want to sell 200,000 of the same model for to make economic sense. At its peak Holden sold only 100,000 commodores in the one year so the writing had been on the wall. True exports help bolster the profitability of Holden but our strong dollar made that unprofitable.
A LEGEND and icon of Australian automotive industry. Never will we see anyone else like him.
And we all say "Thank You Leo" for designing some of the most iconic cars on Australian and New Zealand roads.
Thanks to Shannons and their crew for putting these presentations together.
I loved listening to Leo, he is a genuine bloke, articulate as he is creative and a better honorary Aussie you wouldn't find.
Bloody legend!!
What an amazing man and personaly wanted. To make holden design even better
What a wonderful video. I have had the pleasure of witnessing Leo speak. Even with his still strong American accent, i could happily listen to him speak all day. Thank you Leo, for designing such beautiful cars that we all love, and some of us have had the pleasure of owning. (and i still own one today) You are a legend, and i am delighted that Australia is the place you have chosen to call home. May you be still with us for many years to come.
What a brilliant show fills all the wants with these episodes great stuff Shannon’s
What a great unheard story what a awesome life he has lived and what a inspiration he is. If one thing will keep Holden alive for ever it will be the stories!
A legend, more from Leo would be great
To think this man helped design 3 of my Commodores makes me grateful! Long live Holden!
I've always loved seeing the renderings, clays and models and how the design translated into production cars, it's wonderful to have the insights from the designers too.
As an English bloke, I especially like to see the designs and how the models differed between markets, and how they eventually became world cars.
I dislike how the markets adopted the one model 'world car' platform because I believe it signed the death warrant of many marques instead of cutting costs to save them.
Great work, thanks.
I think your spot on there. Also the flavour of different markets is lost and we’re all forced to accept the design that sells the best even though other markets may find them ugly.
Leo was a customer of mine in Woodend Vic. Top Bloke!
Thanks Shannons. What a wonderful story and presentation of an amazing career
I think k we all owe Leo a great many thanks for all the amazing cars he gave us and what fantastic stories
I think these need to be two hours each I’m sure there is so much more to learn 😍😍😍👍👍👍👍
Wow! You don’t have to be a Holden man to be completely engrossed in his story. Brilliant!
Where would cars like the Commodore, Statesman, HQ,J,X,Z Holden's, WB Statesman Deville and Caprices, Gemini's and Torana's be without Leo pruneau? What a legend of a car designer! Straight shooter and doesn't shy away from anything. Not afraid to speak his mind at all as was seen throughout the episode. I like his opinion on the CV8 Monaro. I see he quite liked the look of it and I liked the way he admired the car for what it was. Love his sense of humour as well as his no nonsense attitude. A man with great determination and never short of common sense. Legend!
Love that Fresh, Clean Car design from one of the Greatest Car designers of all time!
I'm from the UK but these are fascinating videos of Australian car design
A great bit of GM history. Awesome video
Thanks Leo for your designs so iconic
Absolutely brilliant Mr. Pruneau!👏🏼
What a brilliant, brilliant story, well done guys.
I'm Holden through & through, so glad we had this guy guiding the design of our cars over the years. The WB Statesman & Caprice, still awesome looking vehicles.
What an awesome story. Can’t wait to watch more of these videos.
Wow what a true GENTLEMAN could listen to him for hours We thankyou LEO...
Top episodes from Shannon’s great back stories to the automotive industry here.
Love it, looking forward to the rest of the series. Australian automotive heritage in the making.
It's amazing to think what could have been. Holden, especially the commodore could have easily looked rather different from what we know. Great series.
Excellent video and tribute to Leo! Interesting and how valuable that GM and management supported him‼️Interesting how little Input went into Brock cars, not mention here but VK Group A was made by Holden - all 500 of them! Holden can stand proud and it’s maybe best they bowed out before we all drive electric appliances😢
Best youtube clip I've seen.
Absolutely agree on the c4 and thanks for all the effort to make holden live forever
Excellent episode. What a great career. So many iconic cars.
That is my old red Brock Commodore that they featured. A car I regret selling. Had a lot of fun in that car and it went hard, harder than my old Ferrari 308 GT4.
It's interesting to hear that Brock had no design influence on the Commo Brock cars, old mate Leo did though.
Great video, cheers guys.
More of these please.
We want more of Leo designs drawing
Just a brilliant man. I remember a time when no one want an LE Monaro, now most people can’t afford to buy one. Hindsight 😢
I looked at a used one when I first started working . It was about 4K and I couldn’t get a loan to buy it. I was really disappointed then and have been ever since.
Bloody Fantastic, always great to listen to these old blokes talk about the history they created for us!!
And just so sad to know all our car manufacturing was lost, Australia had a lot of potential.
Brilliant story. Thanks for making this happen
How clever!!! Well done Leo. I used to just love waiting to see the new Holden and fords through the 70’s. 80’s and 90’s great times
What an awesome story and so great to see and hear from the person who had a massive part in shaping the Australian motoring business. Thank you for putting this together for us, I only wish we could hear more from him
Just stumbled upon this and was instantly hooked. What a wonderful and enlightening series this is. Well done to all involved.
Outstanding guy, outstanding video. Thanks for putting it together !
Brilliant, very heart warming production!
A amazing bloke thank you for all the great cars
great designer , the LE monaro was such an elegant design with all the detail that made it so , and all came out of a parts bin 👍
Mr Pruneau designed nearly everything my family and myself owned & drove from 1961-1988. 👍🏻👍🏻
Brilliant interview, and what a lovely, hugely talented man.
Leo thank you, I'm even prouder to be title holder of the 10,000th HSV VX Clubsport 2001. Such a shame in regard to the 40 LE Monaro's lost. The photo of Peter Brock with The HDT Team and 1000th Commodore, epic. Great Story Shannon's.
What a wonderful life story
Amazing I thought I knew most of the Holden story ...But you are never too old to learn
Great insight into our car yes
........ Australia's Own......
This is a treasure. This dude ought to do tours at Birdwood.
Spectacular. Thank you.
what a crazy cool story!
Awesome vid👍what bloody Legend, outside from GM with motorsports n Australian can do attitude Leo made great designs, my favourite will always be WB especially ute n seen a lot country fellas add that special chrome grill. What tough looking ute👍
Excellent story and fascination history!
A few facts in there contradict everything we've ever been told.....great video, very informative
"I couldn't get the gasoline out of my blood", any automotive tradesman who grew up in Adelaide or Melbourne could surely relate to Leo's enthusiasm, we were blessed to have witnessed these times.
Thank you Leo, I loved the HD and HR holdens and all the others you were involved with, you were HOLDEN.
Excellent 👍
Legend.. thank you Leo
Have to say I agree with Leo. The CV8Z coupe is arguable the most beautiful car Holden put into production.
What a pleasure to watch. Would've loved to see a WB inspired front end on the LE. Didn't realise Leo had that much influence on HR & Torana. Notice there was no mention of HK & HT. Believe these models were more German based, with the exception of Monaro.
No.
The HK was loosely based on a much modified Chev platform.
@@Rob-fc9wg HK,T&G were already sorted before Leo got here, he went straight into the HQ.
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Did I mention anything about Leo Prueau?
My comment was in response to Adam James' comment.
Shannons Retroautos magazine March 2017 has the HK development story including Leo Pruneaus input on it. These episodes really skip over too much.
20:33 That photo was taken at the Holden Plant in Pagewood Sydney out in their holding yard before cars went to be transported to dealerships. You can barely see in the background the old Sydney film studios which is now the Westfield Eastgardens shopping complex. As a kid, my mates & myself would ride our pushbikes through the Pagewood plant & watch Holden cars being made. I remember seeing those HX LE Coupes in the holding yard before they were shipped & we were in awe of them.
Soo informative and entertaining thanks 👍🇦🇺
Thanks for an excellent and informative video 👏👏👏
Thankyou Leo
This is absolutely brilliant! Thanks for creating these - I really enjoyed it - I can't wait for the next few episodes - Subscribed!
Excellent
One of the greatest
Vv8. The pinnacle
Thanks Leo 👏
I believe that Leo owns and drives a Camira station wagon.
that was simply awesome
great stuff
What an epic life journey.
Interesting to know more on the original design's that became the HDT Commodore's.
Even better was finding out that essentially before HDT it was Patterson Cheney that were building the A9X Toranas.
Fantastic idea for a series. Love your work Leo. Thankyou Shannon's.
Design to Driveway was a limited edition set of 4 books done by David Burrell limited to 750 per book and came out as volume 1&2 first with 3&4 released later. They came out around 2019.
brilliant , loved it
The HD holden still holds the monthly sales record set in may 1965 of over 19,000 units sold.
thats more sold in 1 month than the total ZB commodore production
Reg Hall, God bless him, was according to Bill Tuckey, jacked up on grogg and left with the overseas heavies to leave Bill alone with the HD and it's kidney cutters. Leo's right on point with a 1979 historical story 😁
I knew one of the designers for the VB it all started with the opan in germany, just like the ZB has, but what a car, especially the VB SL/E V8's so much to offer and now they are going for like 50K for a low km and the VC/VH and even the VK Calais is all around the 50 to 80K mark for a low km and V8's only?
Can't sell my VB sle for 10k so maybe low km and all original?
Asking price is not the same as selling price
Just brilliant
I now know who to thank for the Blue VC Commodore I got as a 19 yo, it was 22 years old but man, I lovvved the look of that thing, stanced out with 8 inch Eagers, 100x better looking than the current VP at the time which was as ugly as a hat full of r-soles. Thankyou Leo🙏🏻
what an amazing video
I am a ford man but love all australian made cars what a ledgend leo i was an aprentice mechanic in the early 80s at dandenong council we had a impound yard and a burnt out le monaro came in and i wanted the rims and tyres they said no so it is in landfill .so sad
I was looking in the Sunday times classifieds for an old car, mum and dad were going to buy me something under $2000, but it had to be a 4 cylinder. I never knew commodores came out in a 4, so I got a 1980 VC 4 cylinder the next week. I think the early commodores were the best, the VH is probably my favourite.
Amazing, thank you
Awesome
More stuff like this please
brilliant
I wonder if Leo knew that the grilles for the first batch of the first Holden, the 48-215, were hand made.
He was right when he said the Viva HA was pw. To do the police license test, I hired a Viva HA from a driving school. I had taught myself to drive in an old Velox that wasn't street legal. The Viva HA had a low compression 1 litre engine designed for low octane fuel. Slightly bigger than a Mini Minor engine but lower compression and in a much heavier car. That Viva was so gutless it couldn't keep up with traffic in top gear. The cop said at one point "You're at cruising speed, why are you still in third?" So I put it in 4th and floored the accelerator - we went slower. I looked at the cop, pointed to my foot, and he grinned.
Holden sold well in Australia because they were reliable, cheap, and looked like baby Chevys. But Australian's didn't like the curved sides of the HD.
Those Caprice front ends ended up on quite a few utes back in the day. All legit no doubt.
I stayed in The White Hart hotel in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in 1997 on a government trip from Australia. 30 years after Leo.
CV8 monaro was the most beautiful car holden ever made