Paddy Hopkirk

Who is Paddy Hopkirk?

Patrick Barron "Paddy" Hopkirk is a former rally driver from Northern Ireland.

He was born in Belfast and educated at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare from 1945–1949 before attending Trinity College, Dublin until 1953. He started his winning career in professional racing and rally driving in 1955. Alongside Henry Liddon he won the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in a Mini Cooper S car number 37, license plate/registration tag 33 EJB. They are the most recent all-British crew to have won the event.

Hopkirk also 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. He drove at Bathurst in a Morris Cooper S from 1965–1967, obtaining a best result of 6th outright and 3rd in class in the 1965 Armstrong 500 when paired with another great rally driver, Timo Mäkinen of Finland. In 1965, Hopkirk also won a Coupe d'Argent at the Alpine Rally.

He was elected as a life member of the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1967, and is also president of the Historic Rally Car Register, and a patron of disability charity WheelPower. In 2010, Hopkirk was among the first four inductees into the Rally Hall of Fame, along with Mäkinen, Rauno Aaltonen and Erik Carlsson.