Abstract <p>The objective of this study is to obtain a leaf spring with minimum weight, an excellent smooth ride, and excellent load-carrying capacity. To get these benefits at a high percentage, optimization of the material of a mono-leaf spring is achieved by comparing the performances of two leaf springs. The material of the first leaf spring was S-glass fiber reinforced composite (G-reinforced), and the material of the second was a hybrid of carbon/S-glass/Kevlar-reinforced composite (CGK-reinforced). Finite element analysis (FEA) is performed to obtain static and dynamic results, and a comparison of FEA results for both composite and hybrid composite leaf springs is done. It is found that, compared to the composite (G-reinforced) leaf spring; the optimized hybrid (CGK-reinforced) leaf spring has the following advantages: natural frequencies that are much higher, the weight is 29.2% less, and elastic strain energy is much higher. The results of the Tsai-Wu failure criterion for the optimized hybrid leaf spring exhibited better results than those of the composite one up to a 3400 N load. On the other hand, the hybrid (CGK-reinforced) leaf spring meets the satisfied Tsai-Wu failure criterion up to a 4000 N load, but only up to 3400 N, the composite (G-reinforced) one is satisfied. All these benefits make it a strong candidate to use the optimized hybrid (CGK-reinforced) leaf spring in the field of lightweight automobiles.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>