Surprise win for Paddy Hopkirk in Mini Cooper at Monte Carlo Rally: 1964 report

As usual, the rally started from various cities spread all over Europe, of which the most popular from the point of view of competitors starting from there was the Norwegian capital of Oslo, from which four of the American Falcons, including Ljungfeldt, started as well as the two red Saab Sports of Erik Carlsson and his wife, Pat Moss. The Swedes, Tom Trana and Carl-Magnus Skogh who were driving Volvo PV544s, and Donald and Erle Morley also started from Oslo, as did the Scania-Vabis-entered VW 1500Ss of Pauli Toivonen and Bernt Jansson. These latter cars were fitted with an extra German-made heater. in the front boot lest the weather proved too cold in the South of France.

For the first time in many years, there was to be a start from a town in Russia and the place selected for this honour was Minsk. Quite a large proportion of British entries seemed attracted to this city on the Steppes, and these included Paddy Hopkirk in the Cooper S, Sidney Allard and his son Alan in Cortinas, Raymond Baxter in a Cooper and Michael Frostick in an Imp. It was to be the first time too that there had been a Russian entry in the Monte Carlo Rally, and no less than five cars were entered, of which three were the big 2 1/2-litre Volgas and the other two were the smaller 1,360-c.c. Moskvitchs. These did not, unfortunately, make a particularly impressive rally debut, as they had obtained Greek maps to get them as far as Belgium (primarily one supposes due to the resemblance between the Greek and Russian alphabets) but did not have any maps to take them through France. Thus it came as no surprise to learn that two of them at least had travelled straight down the N7 to Monte Carlo. This was a gallant effort, nevertheless; to try and compete in a major International event in cars of practically pre-war design and without maps, and the Russian crews received a hearty ovation for their efforts at the end of the prize-giving. One hopes that they will not be dissuaded from trying again and that they will be better prepared next time.

The next most popular – or should one say populous ? – start, after Oslo, was the French capital, Paris. The other four Falcons, whose drivers were Peter Harper, Peter Jopp, Graham Hill and Anne Hall, had chosen this as their starting point and they were joined by two of the British-built Ford Cortina GTs driven by David Seigle-Morris and Geoff Mabbs. As always, there were a large number of the big Citroën DS19s, both works entered and privately  owned, together with the odd Simca 1000 and Renault R8, also privately owned. As far as rallying is concerned, completely new cars were the three Plymouth Valiants entered by the American Chrysler Corporation. These were the first examples of the Plymouth compact to have a V8 engine and their entry marked another milestone in that Scott Harvey and Gene Henderson were the first all-American crew in an all-American Car to compete in the Monte.

The number of entrants who had chosen to start from Glasgow had fallen by comparison with previous years, but there was still the faithful few who could see the mystic attraction of starting in Britain, crossing the Channel and then running down to Monte. Among them were the two works Reliants of Bobby Parkes and Peter Roberts and the works-loaned Rovers of Ken James and Raymond Joss. The only other sizeable British entry was centred on Monte Carlo itself as this had been chosen by the works Cortinas of Henry Taylor and Vic Elford. A similar car had been loaned to Peter Dimmock, of the B.B.C., who was also starting from Monte Carlo, as were the works Citroëns of the French Champions, René Trautmann and Claudine Bouchet.

The remaining starts were from Warsaw, Frankfurt, Lisbon, and Athens, and all the routes from these various points, from which the cars had started either very late on the Friday or in the early hours of Saturday morning, converged on to the town of Reims at about lunchtime on Monday. There was an hour’s break here during which the Automobile Club of Champagne treated the crews to a selection of beverages, food, and a wash-and-brush-up. Up until this point, the various routes had been very easy to manage in the time allowed, although the Minsk starters had been driving on ice nearly all the way into Germany, and the routes that had crossed central France had been infested with freezing fog. There had already been several major retirements: Sidney Allard had hit a level crossing in Czechoslovakia with his Cortina; Pauline Mayman had been injured when a Dutch farmer crashed into her Cooper S, and Vic Elford had retired in his Cortina GT after colliding with a Peugeot shortly before Reims.

After Reims, there was about twenty-five hours of common route which all the cars would follow to Monte Carlo, and although the afternoon’s run to Gerardmer was easy and straightforward, nearly all the route from then on could be considered as leaving little time for the correction of mistakes. The first of the five special stages that were included in this final common route did not come until just before dawn and those running with late numbers were able to complete the last three tests in the insipid daylight of dawn.

None of the special stages were of the straightforward hill-climb type, but were without exception of the up-and-over kind that do not unduly favour a particular type of car. Nevertheless, the by now famous Monte formula was to be employed. This formula gives a reduction factor based on the car’s engine size and state of tune which is multiplied by the total test times of the car and seeks to put all cars, whatever their engine size, etc., on an equal basis. One effect that this has is to keep the G.T. cars out of the top places in the overall classification as they are required to go 5% faster than the Group 1 production saloons in order to record the same penalty for the same performance. If this does not seem particularly unfair on a car like the Morley brother’s M.G.-B which won the G.T. category this year, one must bear in mind that Group 1 production saloons can be persuaded to go very quickly, as witness the performance of the Cooper S, the Saab Sport, and the 1964 Falcons.

The first test, which was just north of Gap, set the pattern for the rest, with Ljungfeldt making fastest time in the Falcon with 15 min. 54 sec. and Hopkirk close behind with 16 min. 13 sec. Both these performances must have depended to a great extent on sheer nerve supported by reconnaissance as well as driving ability, for although this was a very fast test (22.5 kilometres to be covered in about 16 min.) there were a number of places where these cars would be up to speeds of about a hundred miles an hour, on a narrow road with ice patches lurking round even the fastest bend.

The second test was the longest of the rally and was originally to have been longer still but, to the consternation of the big-car drivers, about five of the faster kilometres had been lopped off the start. Despite this, Ljungfeldt still made fastest time though Trana just managed to oust Hopkirk from second fastest. It is distinctly noticeable that the Coopers had the advantage of the other two principal front-wheel-drive cars, the Saab and the Citroën, which could only make ninth and 10th fastest respectively.