Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis
(1906-1988)

Alec Issigonis was the creator of the Morris Minor.

He was born in Smyrna, Turkey, in 1906. His father, a naturalised Brit of Greek descent was married to the daughter of a Bavarian brewer with a brewery in Smyrna. His father ran a marine engineering business with his brother and Alec soon developed engineering talents.

At the end of World War I, the British community in Turkey, which had been on the side of Germany in the war, were evacuated by the Royal Navy.
Alec's father died during the journey and the family arrived in England almost penniless in 1922. Although Alec's mother wanted to send him to art school he preferred an engineering education. He completed a three year course at Battersea Polytechnic.

From 1928 to 1934 he was working as a draughtsman with Edward Gillett in London, who was developing a type of semiautomatic transmission. He frequently visited the Midlands and in 1934 was offered a job in the Humber Drawing Office at Coventry.

After two years he met Robert Boyle, Chief Engineer at Morris, who offered him a job at Cowley, where he developed an independent suspension and rack and pinion steering.
In the early 1940s, Issigonis began to work on the design of the Mosquito, which later became the Morris Minor. The entire design team consisted of Alec and two draughtsmen (Jack Daniels and Reg Job) who interpreted his freehand drawings.
The design was influenced by various sources such as Citroën,Steyr and Packard. The first car ran in 1947 and when Lord Nuffield (William Morris) saw his Morris Minor for the first time he was furious, calling it 'a poached egg'.

When the Morris Minor was launched, in 1948, it had excellent roadhandling and very much inside space. The public took to the design and within 11 years, one million Morris Minors had been made.

In 1952 Issigonis went to work for Alvis where he was going to design a new sports car. The project was cancelled by Alvis because they lacked the money to bring the car into production.

In 1955 Issigonis returned to Morris, now part of BMC, as Chief engineer. He started on the design of the 1100 but the Suez crisis caused a postponement of this project.
Instead the team developed a small saloon which became the world famous 'Mini', which is still in production today, after more than 30 years.