Biography issigonis official
Sir Alec Issigonis lived his life in parallel with the rise and decline of the British motor industry, becoming its first and only celebrity.!
Here is a definitive biography of a man who influenced modern car design more than any other, the designer of the Morris Minor and BMC`s front wheel drive.
Alec Issigonis
British car designer
Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis (Greek: σερ Άλεκ, Αλέξανδρος Αρνόλδος Κωνσταντίνος Ισηγόνης) CBE FRS RDI (18 November 1906 – 2 October 1988) was a British-Greek automotive designer.
He designed the Mini, launched by the British Motor Corporation in 1959, and voted the second most influential car of the 20th century in 1999.[1][2]
Early life and education
Issigonis was born on 18 November 1906 in the Ottoman port city of Smyrna, the only child of Constantine Issigonis and Hulda Prokopp.[3] His paternal grandfather, Demosthenis, had migrated to Smyrna from the Greek island of Paros in the 1830s and Constantine was a successful and wealthy shipbuilding engineer.[4] His maternal ancestors originated in the Kingdom of Württemberg.
It was through his mother's kinships that Issigonis was a first cousin once removed to BMW and Volkswagen director Bernd Pischetsrieder.&