Sir Alec Issigonis - Automotive Pioneer

Born in Smyrna (now in Turkey) on November18, 1906, Issigonis' British family were forced to live under house arrest during World War I when Germans controlled the city. At 16 years of age, his mother took him to England for studies. In 1925, he enrolled for a three-year engineering course at Battersea Polytechnic. Issigonis failed the math exam thrice, but excelled at drawing. On graduation, his mother gifted him a car to tour Europe with before settling down in a job. Alec however found his car to be unreliable, and it was this dissatisfaction with the machine that motivated him to build better machines.

After working for a few years in the British auto industry Issigonis was offered the post of steering and suspension engineer at Morris Motors. Working under A V Oak, Issigonis drew up the original design of the Morris Minor. But when Austin merged with Morris, he moved to Alvis Cars and designed a V8 sports sedan before moving back to Morris-Austin, which was now rechristened as British Motor Corporation (BMC).

At a time when the Suez Canal crisis led to gasoline rationing, his bosses at British Motor asked him to design a small car that could comfortably seat four while using an existing engine

Issigonis put together all the experience he gained from working as a project manager for Morris. He reduced the 14-inch wheels of the Minor to 10-inchers and placed them on the extremities of the car. He employed a compact rubber cone suspension and mounted a transverse engine and presto! He had crafted a veritable game-changer of a small car. Launched in 1959, and christened the ‘Mini’, it attained iconic status in the early 1960s.

The last original Mini came off the production line in October 2000. Alec’s car had wide tracks for responsive handling and enhanced safety, and was extremely roomy for a small car, with 80 per cent of the 10-foot car’s interior space accorded to passengers. After the Mini, Alec made designing cars with increased passenger space his obsession. Working in collaboration with the Pininfarina studio in Italy, he designed the 1100 model for Morris which was launched in 1962 and a year later as the Austin 1100.

Intensely independent and arrogantly uncompromising, Issigonis always had imaginative approach to car design. The Mini, Morris Minor and the Austin 1100, three of the top selling cars in British history were his brainchild. No, Alec Issigonis did not give birth to the concept of small cars, which existed before he created his icons. But it was Issigonis’ creations that have made the small car so universally appealing and well loved – that we see even in India today.