Axon's Automotive Anorak – Getting into motorsport the hard way

Following a brief but enjoyable chat with the Irish rallying legend and car accessory entrepreneur Paddy Hopkirk at the charming Kop Hill Climb in the Chiltern Hills last weekend (for which Paddy is a patron), he explained his rather unusual route to fine-tuning his high speed cornering skills on loose surfaces.

At the very tender age of nine, Paddy Hopkirk – the outright winner of the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in his Works BMC Mini Cooper – acquired his first motorised vehicle; a 1922 Harding Putney Model IV. A what?!

For those of you unfamiliar with a Harding Putney (which will be 99.8 per cent of you I suspect, myself included), this early 1920s device is a purpose-built invalid carriage, initially introduced in 3-wheeled tricycle hand-propelled ‘Putney 1 and 2’ form by R.A. Harding from 1921 onwards. Paddy Hopkirk’s 1922 Harding was originally a two-seater convertible ‘motor chair’ with a rear-mounted 250cc motorcycle engine fitted later in the invalid carriage’s life.

Paddy’s neighbour, a priest in Belfast, gave him the Putney in 1942 as a play thing, and this sparked the Irish rally man’s early interest in driving. At this stage the Harding had lever steering and a rudimentary braking system, operated via a hand brake only.

Hopkirk addressed this problem by fitting a new braking system, operated by a foot pedal, thus enabling the famous ex-BMC Works driver to begin perfecting his ‘Scandinavian flick’ cornering skills in this slow but inherently unstable mobile device, whilst still wearing short trousers.

Paddy’s Harding was kept in storage for a while, but as his motoring racing career blossomed, he lost contact with the car many years ago. Fast forward a few decades, and Paddy mentioned the Harding – his first motoring love – in passing during a BBC interview. Amazingly the then London-based owner of the car heard this interview, and contacted Hopkirk to say that he had the car, by then in a sorry state, stored away in Dulwich!

Even more amazing, it was Paddy’s Harding, with its original Belfast registration number still intact on the car. Paddy acquired the mobile chair and set about having it fully restored, including returning the Putney Model IV to its original light grey colour, with the well-worn black leather bench seat cushion remaining from his early time with the car in the 1940s.

The Harding is as primitive, rough and bumpy to drive now as Paddy remembers it being when he was nine, but surely no other notable racing driver can claim to have cut his motor sport teeth in an early 1920s 220cc invalid carriage. Nice one Paddy!

Photography by Gary Axon