Who drove the winning Mini Cooper in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally?

Paddy Hopkirk drove the winning Mini Cooper in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally.

Driving a works Morris Mini Cooper S with co-driver Henry Liddon, Hopkirk won the rally in car number 37, registered 33 EJB. The result was a landmark victory for the Mini and for the British Motor Corporation, proving that a small, relatively modest-looking front-wheel-drive car could defeat much larger and more powerful machinery.

The rally was famously demanding, with competitors facing long road sections, winter conditions and difficult mountain stages. Hopkirk and Liddon finished ahead of Bo Ljungfeldt’s Ford Falcon and Erik Carlsson’s Saab. Fellow Mini driver Timo Mäkinen finished fourth, while Rauno Aaltonen placed seventh.

The names are easy to mix up because Mäkinen and Aaltonen also became Monte Carlo winners in Minis. Mäkinen won in 1965, and Aaltonen won in 1967. Hopkirk’s 1964 victory was the first of the Mini’s three overall Monte Carlo wins in the 1960s.