32 Facts About Paddy Hopkirk

Patrick Barron Hopkirk was a rally driver from Northern Ireland, he was considered to be one of the finest rally drivers that Ireland ever produced.

Paddy Hopkirk was appointed MBE in the 2016 New Year Honours list.

In early 2016, Paddy Hopkirk became the IAM RoadSmart Mature Drivers Ambassador.

Paddy Hopkirk was known to be very active within the charity and in addition to his mature driver work, Paddy was particularly supportive of the charity's Young Driver Ambassador.

Paddy Hopkirk was born in Belfast, raised as a Catholic, and educated at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare from 1945 to 1949 before attending Trinity College, Dublin until 1953.

Paddy Hopkirk first learned the basics of car control at the age of nine, when a local clergyman left him his invalid carriage in his will.

Paddy Hopkirk later graduated to a motorcycle with a sidecar - which was added at the insistence of his father, who felt it would be safer - and upon attending Trinity to study engineering, acquired an Austin 7 "Chummy" Tourer which he used to make his rally debut.

Now bitten by the car bug, Paddy Hopkirk dropped out of university to start working for Dublin's Volkswagen assembler's retail operation in Ballsbridge, where he purchased a string of used Volkswagen Beetles to enter in competitions.

Paddy Hopkirk was offered a free Beetle for the 1953 Circuit of Ireland by Isaac Agnew of Belfast.

Paddy Hopkirk started his winning career in professional racing and rally driving in 1955, taking a class win at that year's Circuit of Ireland, and clinching his first Hewison Trophy, awarded to the most successful Irish rally driver of the year: he would go on to win the Trophy for three consecutive years.

Paddy Hopkirk took two Circuit of Ireland wins in 1961 and 1962 and another third at the Alpine Rally in 1961.

Whilst at Rootes Paddy Hopkirk took part in circuit racing, winning his class in a Rapier in the touring car race supporting the 1960 British Grand Prix.

Paddy Hopkirk finished third at the 1962 Monte Carlo Rally in a Sunbeam Rapier.

However, Paddy Hopkirk was becoming frustrated by the Rapier's lack of reliability, culminating in all three works cars blowing their engines within the space of a kilometre at that year's Acropolis Rally.

Paddy Hopkirk first competed in a Mini at the 1963 Monte Carlo Rally, where he finished sixth.

Paddy Hopkirk achieved success in circuit racing in France that year when he and team-mate Alan Hutcheson won their class at the Le Mans 24 Hours in an MGB, despite being delayed by 90 minutes whilst digging their car out of a sandbank.

Paddy Hopkirk led BMC to the team win, with fellow Mini drivers Timo Makinen and Rauno Aaltonen pacing fourth and seventh.

Paddy Hopkirk went on to steer an Austin-Healey to victory at his next international rally, the Osterreichische Alpenfahrt, later that year.

Paddy Hopkirk travelled to Australia during his career to drive for the BMC Works Team in the annual Bathurst 500 race for standard production cars at the Mount Panorama Circuit.

Paddy Hopkirk drove at Bathurst in a Morris Cooper S from 1965 to 1967, obtaining a best result of 6th outright and 3rd in class in the 1965 Armstrong 500 when paired with another great rally driver, Timo Makinen of Finland.

Paddy Hopkirk won the 1965 and 1967 Circuit of Ireland Rally, the 1966 and 1967 Alpine Rally, and the 1967 Rally Acropolis.

Paddy Hopkirk was elected as a life member of the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1967, and was president of the Historic Rally Car Register, and a patron of disability charity WheelPower.

In 1968, at the London-Sydney Marathon, Paddy Hopkirk gallantly gave up any chance of victory on the penultimate stage to rescue the Bianchi-Ogier team then in the lead, whose Citroen DS had just collided head-on with another car on a road supposedly closed to traffic.

Paddy Hopkirk's crew went on to complete the rally in second, behind Andrew Cowan's Hillman Hunter.

Paddy Hopkirk elected to step away from full-time competition at the end of that year, coinciding with British Leyland head Lord Stokes' decision to close down BL's competition department.

Paddy Hopkirk is a brand of automotive accessories named after Hopkirk.

Paddy Hopkirk had been involved in the automotive trade from his early days in rallying: by the early 1970s he was involved importing Toyotas into Northern Ireland.

Paddy Hopkirk established a driving school, which along with his car accessories business was sold in the 1990s, and he subsequently set up a marketing firm, Hopkirks Ltd.

Paddy Hopkirk was a consultant to BMW for their revived Mini.

Outside of his business interests, Paddy Hopkirk was a keen supporter of WheelPower, a charity promoting wheelchair sport and a vice-president of the British Racing Drivers' Club.

In 1969 and 1970 Paddy Hopkirk helped create and edit a comic strip that appeared weekly in the Sunday Mirror, intended to help make people better drivers.

Paddy Hopkirk married his wife Jennifer in 1967: they had three children Katie, Patrick and William with six grandchildren Molly, Jessica, Fenella, Amalia, Allegra and Alexander.