Event: South Humberside MA receives presentation

About the event

South Humberside MA was treated to a fantastic presentation from Jonathan Wood the author of Alec Issigonis, the Man Who Made the Mini.

Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis born to British parents in a Greek port now known as Izmir Turkey, he showed an interest in cars from a young age, his father and grandfather were both engineers, after World War I and the death of his father Alec moved to England and started an engineering course at Battersea Polytechnic, when he graduated his mother brought him a car to travel Europe, the car was unreliable this prompted him to improve driving experiences.

His first job was as a draughtsman for a company who was developing a semi-automatic gearbox, in his spare time he worked with George Dawson on project designing and building a hand built racing car which he raced himself.
In 1936 he moved to a job as an engineer with Morris Motors working on an independent steering and suspension system, Alec devised the independent coil spring suspension for the Morris 10, but the company adopted a beam axle.

During the Second World War Morris Motors took on military work developing a lightweight reconnaissance vehicle, Alec was excused from the armed forces and remained at Morris Motors Crawley Plant.

He worked on many projects for Morris, towards the end of the war he started work on a post war car that became the Morris Minor which was produced from 1948, then BMC was formed by the merger of Morris and Austin, Alec then went to Alvis and designed a saloon car with a V-8 engine and experimented with independent suspension, later he went back to BMC this time at Longbridge to design new cars and produced several prototypes, in 1956 Alec was told to design a small car because of fuel rationing, in 1957 prototypes were done and production began in 1959 the cars were called Morris Mini and Austin 7 then became known as Austin Mini and then Mini, with a rubber cone suspension designed by Alex Moulton.

The Mini became the best-selling car in Britain with front wheel drive, transvers engine, gearbox sump and 10 inch wheels, as the Mini gained popularity Alec was promoted, he continued with other projects, the Morris 1100 was launched with a hydrolastic suspension, later came the Austin 1800, followed by the Austin Maxi, but costs spiralled out of control and crippled BMC, Alec was pushed to one side and made Special Developments Director by Lord Stokes Chairman of the newly formed British Leyland in 1969.

Alec was an outspoken character, dismissive of market research, he learnt when designing a car never copy other manufactures, he was a hard man to deal with, independent and uncompromising, but had a natural approach to designing and engineering cars, all this from a man who failed his mathematics exams.