The Last Waltz

The 1964 Monte Carlo Rally made a motorsport legend of the Mini. We take today’s Cooper S to retrace the final miles of Paddy Hopkirk’s triumphant drive, and find out from the man himself what it took to win

- Antony Ingram

AT 4AM ONE MORNING IN JANUARY 1964, Paddy Hopkirk was woken by a telephone call from a journalist: ‘“I hear you might have won the rally,” he said to me. There are worse things to be woken up to!

The 1964 Monte Carlo Rally has gone down in history, a giant-killing story where Hopkirk and codriver Henry Liddon in their Morris Mini Cooper S were able to fend off the might of Bo Ljungfeldt’s powerful Ford Falcon on the steep slopes and sinuous turns of the alpine foothills.

It’s why, like Hopkirk, I’m woken by my telephone at 4am. Though rather than a journalist delivering good news, it’s the tuneless chime and startling buzz of my alarm. It’s a reminder that I have a 15-hour drive ahead of me to the Côte d’Azur, in order to retrace the final few miles over which Hopkirk sealed the Mini’s victory just over 55 years ago.

Such a distance shouldn’t be a problem for evo’s new Fast Fleet Mini Cooper S, dressed for the occasion with white number squares, a matt black strip across the bonnet and, most importantly for me, a quartet of bright spotlights in front of the grille. That’s actually two fewer than the famous 33 EJB wore on the rally – it boasted an extra lamp in the centre, plus a roof-mounted spot – but rally drivers would have killed for the illumination of the modern units back in the 1960s.

What I hadn’t realised until recently was just how appropriate the long drive down to Monaco will be. There were nine separate start cities all over Europe, and occasionally even further afield, from which competitors could begin their rally, and their first destination was Reims, from where 25 hours of common route would lead the cars to the Alps for the timed stages.