Paddy Hopkirk’s victory in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally was such an event that he, his navigator, Henry Liddon, and their car, a Mini Cooper, were invited to appear on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, an ITV show with an audience that sometimes approached 20 million.
The rally, a three-day midwinter event in which competitors set off from all points of Europe to converge on the principality, with the winner judged via a complicated handicap system, was closely followed by television and the newspapers. Victory for a little British car that symbolised the revival of Britain’s cultural energy was seen as a cause for national celebration. The Beatles sent a congratulatory telegram, as did the prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
