He 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.

After being impressed by a test drive of Pat Moss's Austin-Healey 3000, he set his mind on a move, joining the British Motor Corporation and making his debut in a 3000 at the Liège-Sofia-Liège rally in August.

[4] Hopkirk also 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.

The victory made Hopkirk a household name: he received telegrams from the then UK Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home and the Beatles, was given the Freedom of the City of Belfast, and appeared along with his Mini on Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

[4] 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 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 Mäkinen of Finland.

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

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

Hopkirk and his teammate Tony Nash managed to pull out occupants from both cars that were starting to burn, probably saving the life of severely wounded Lucien Bianchi in the process.

In 1994, he entered the Monte Carlo Rally again, driving a current Mini Cooper, very similar to the original car, but now produced by Rover Group, whose 1275cc engine was tuned to deliver 104 bhp[7] and with a registration number almost identical to the victorious 1964 Mini (L33 EJB): thirty years after his famous win, Hopkirk and his co-pilot Ron Crellin finished the race in 60th place against much more modern and powerful machines.

He also 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.[5] He was also a consultant to BMW for their revived Mini.

[10] Hopkirk married his wife Jennifer (née Manser) in 1967: they had three children Katie, Patrick and William[5] with six grandchildren Molly, Jessica, Fenella, Amalia, Allegra and Alexander.