The Monte Carlo Rally: Mini, Ford, Saab, and an Irishman's Memoirs

Filed in archive British Cars , Famous Drivers , Rally/Retro-Rally on October 29, 2007

Paddy Hopkirk? Now there's a name to recall if your memory reaches back to European rallying in the 60's as mine does. But even if it doesn't, listen here, friends. This talented racer drove Minis to some of the most spectacular Monte Carlo Rally wins ever recorded. ""The Paddy Hopkirk Story: A Dash of the Irish" " is a book about the Irishman's extraordinary rally and race career, which began with a1955 St Patrick's Day Trial in a VW Beetle and concluded with the 1990 Pirelli Classic Marathon, won in a Mini Cooper S. LJK Setright, the most literate automobile journalist ever, wrote this about Hopkirk's victory in Mini, the Icon of a Generation: "At the beginning of 1964 he started from Minsk in the Monte Carlo Rally, accompanied by one of the team's top co-driver navigators, Henry Liddon. They had to fight the opposition, the handicap, the weather, and the hazards of Russian roads, not to mention the chauvanistic fury of a gendarme when Hopkirk wrong-slotted the wrong way into a one-way street somewhere in the depths of France. They survived it all, and they won."

Ford had arranged a team of famous drivers, proclaiming a victory in advance. Saab, whose cars were already proven winners in rally conditions, had the expert Erik Carlsson in its team. The little Minis supposedly didn't have a chance. But they had Paddy Hopkirk and as mentioned, they trounced the Goliaths. Now a book has been released about Paddy Hopkirk and being chock-full of Irish tales is a winner for anyone who enjoys sipping a "Guinness" while absorbing a wonderful motor racing memoir.

[Thanks to Hemmings newsletter for this publisher's link]