The Leonidas-2 represented an effort made by the Greek vehicle manufacturer ELVO to produce an advanced armoured personnel carrier (APC) of its own.

The first version of the Leonidas was the Austrian Saurer 4K 4FA armoured personnel carrier built with minor modifications by the Greek company (then known as Steyr Hellas S.A.) from 1981 until 1987.

This was done by ELVO in 1987 with the aim to essentially develop it as an armoured infantry fighting vehicle (AIFV).

Eventually ELVO worked on its own, developing a completely new armoured infantry fighting vehicle, the Kentaurus in 1998.

The table below shows the production run based on the history of publicly known orders, as published in the press.