Alec Issigonis
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Sir Alec Arnold Constantine Issigonis KBE FRS (November 18, 1906–October 2, 1988) was a designer of cars, now remembered chiefly for the development of the Austin Mini in 1959.
Biography
Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis was born in Ottoman Turkey. His father, Constantine Issigonis, was a Greek born British subject and his mother, Hulda Prokopp, Bavarian. They were banished from their hometown Smyrna (now Izmir) and Alec and his mother came to live in the UK in 1923, his father having died in 1922. Alec studied engineering at Battersea Polytechnic in London, he failed his mathematics exams three times and subsequently called pure mathematics 'the enemy of every creative genius'.
He went into the motor industry as an engineer and designer working for Humber, and he also did some motor racing during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1936 he moved to the Morris company working on an independent front suspension system for the Morris 10 but the war prevented this from going into production but it was later used on the MG Y Type. He worked on various projects for Morris through the war and towards its end started work on an advanced post war car codenamed Mosquito that became the Morris Minor, which was produced from 1948 until 1971. In 1952 he moved to Alvis Cars where he designed an advanced saloon with all aluminium V-8 engine but this never got beyond a prototype as its cost was beyond Alvis's resources. In 1956 he moved back to what was now the British Motor Corporation (BMC) to design a new small car codenamed ADO15 which became in 1959 the Morris Mini Minor or Austin Se7en which went on to become the best selling British car in history and which was still being manufactured in 2000.
Sir Alec, he was awarded a knighthood in 1969, was always most famous for his creation of the Mini but he was really proudest of his participation in designing the Morris Minor, because he considered it as being a vehicle which managed to combine many of the luxuries and conveniences of a good motor car with a price suitable for the working classes, while the Mini was a spartan mode of conveyance with everything cut to the bone.
He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1967 and retired from the motor industry in 1971. In 1988 Issigonis died of Parkinson’s Disease.
Further reading
- Gillian Bardsley Issigonis: The Official Biography (Icon Books Ltd, 2005) ISBN 1840466871
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