Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis was born in 1906 in the Ottoman port of Smyrna to a British-naturalised Greek family, and came to Britain in 1923 after the Great Fire of Smyrna. He studied engineering at Battersea Polytechnic and began in the motor industry with Humber, racing an Austin Seven special in his spare time and building his plywood-and-aluminium Lightweight Special.
In 1936 he joined Morris Motors at Cowley as a suspension designer, and towards the end of the war began the advanced post-war car codenamed Mosquito, which became the Morris Minor of 1948, and which he considered his proudest achievement. In 1952 he moved to Alvis to design an advanced saloon with an all-aluminium V8 that proved too costly to build, and at the end of 1955 he returned to BMC at Longbridge under Sir Leonard Lord.
After the Suez Crisis of 1956, Lord told him to build the small car, XC/9003 as quickly as possible. The Mini was launched in August 1959, with its transverse engine, front-wheel drive and 10-inch wheels, and 5.3 million were built. He followed it with the Morris 1100 and the Austin 1800, the Maxi and the Mini Moke, and was nicknamed “the Greek god”. He was pushed aside at British Leyland and retired in 1971.
