Alec Issigonis
1906–1988
Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis
Designer of the Mini · Technical director of BMC
British-Greek engineer who designed the Morris Minor and the 1959 Mini, later voted the second most influential car of the 20th century.
- Born
- 18 November 1906Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey)
- Died
- 2 October 1988Edgbaston, Birmingham, England
- Nationality
- British-Greek
Biography
Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis was born in Smyrna, today İzmir, on 18 November 1906. His family was evacuated to Malta in 1922, and in 1923, after his father's death, he moved to Britain with his mother. He joined Morris Motors as a suspension designer in 1936 and completed the Lightweight Special racing car in 1939.
His post-war project became the Morris Minor, built from 1948 to 1971. He moved to Alvis in 1952, where his advanced V8 saloon proved too costly to build. At the British Motor Corporation he then designed the Mini, launched in August 1959 as the Morris Mini-Minor and the Austin Seven; BMC and Issigonis received the Dewar Trophy for it.
Issigonis became BMC's technical director in 1961, was appointed CBE and Royal Designer for Industry in 1964, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1967 and knighted in 1969. He retired in 1971 and died in Edgbaston on 2 October 1988. In 1999 the Mini was voted the second most influential car of the 20th century.
Timeline
Alec Issigonis in 1CARS stories
- Morris — Lord Nuffield's Oxford Car Maker, 1912–1984
- Austin — Herbert Austin's Longbridge Car Maker, 1905–1988
- Morris Minor — Britain’s First Million-Selling Car
- Long-Running Cars: Guests from the Past Built for Decades
- The History of Mini: From Issigonis's 1959 Small Car to BMW's MINI
- Mini Cooper 3 (F56): The Third-Generation BMW Mini in Detail
Related people
Sources
- Alec Issigonis — Wikipedia · accessed 13 October 2026