Alec Issigonis

Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis (Greek: σερ Άλεκ, Αλέξανδρος Αρνόλδος Κωνσταντίνος Ισηγόνης) (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. 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. 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. 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. As British subjects, his father having naturalised whilst studying engineering in London in 1897, Issigonis and his parents were evacuated to Malta by the Royal Navy in September 1922 ahead of the Great Fire of Smyrna and the Turkish capture of Smyrna at the end of the Greco-Turkish War. His father died shortly after and Issigonis and his mother moved to the United Kingdom in 1923. Issigonis studied engineering at Battersea Polytechnic in London. Having failed his mathematics exams three times, subsequently declaring it 'the most uncreative subject you can study', Issigonis decided to enter the University of London External Programme to complete his university education.