104 Alec Issigonis Premium High Res Photos - Getty Images In 1942, the first scale model was produced and the following year work began on a hand-formed steel prototype. From then onwards, any car in the small or medium market without a transverse engine was considered unusual, and conservative. [4] His maternal ancestors originated in the Kingdom of Wrttemberg. Subsequently my main triumph of design is a carbon block conveyor that fit into an oddly shaped spot while using less pieces of steel than its predecessor. In 1961, a shipload of Minis suffered mild water damage on their journey to the east coast of US. The childhood . Sir Alec Issigonis hadn't even seen a car until he was 12 years old. To achieve this feat, Issigonis utilized a front wheel drive layout with a transverse-mounted engine, the first modern application of this concept. Enter the length or pattern for better results. Our tool for managing your permission to our use of cookies is temporarily offline. By 1941, Issigonis had started work on an advanced post war car, then codenamed Mosquito, which became the Morris Minor.
The Creator of An Iconic Car: Alec Issigonis. - Mini Issigonis was born in Smyrna in 1906. This greatly modified machine was replaced with a radical special completed in 1939, constructed of plywood laminated in aluminium sheeting. He and Frank Stephenson are both famous car designers. Heynes later became Technical Director at Jaguar and was a personal friend of Issigonis for many years. It confronted the conservative image of BMC head on, even if the rest of BMC range didnt. Great article there should be a movie about Issigonis! The gearbox sharing the sump oil worked ok, but the transmission absolutely pulverised the lubricating qualities out of the oil, and it really required changing every 3000 miles if you wanted the thing to last. November 18, 1906 Car designer Alec Issigonis, the man who gave the world the Mini, was born in Turkey on this day to a Greek father and Bavarian mother. He showed that cars could be practical and pleasant to ride in and drive, and that size was not everything; he defined the template for the small petrol engined car for 50 years, maybe longer, and showed how modest cars could become wish list items, attracting customer such as Enzo Ferrari. Click the answer to find similar crossword clues . Issigoniss mother, Hulda Prokopp, was descended from a Bavarian brewing family who had settled in Smyrna, and established a brewery. Youre right about maintenance.
German Engineer Who Designed And Built The First Practical Automobile Maybe it takes that sort of single-mindedness, bordering on obsession, to create something different, get it into production in spite of obstacles and naysayers, and make it a success. He immigrated to Britain in 1922, studied engineering and in 1948 masterminded the Morris Minor, the first British car to sell more than a million. He failed his degree course but gained a diploma in Mechanical Engineering, at the third attempt, in 1928. Biography: Sir ALEC issigonis - The designer of Britain's favourite cars, Britain's favourite car designer .
Alec Issigonis - Trivia, Family, Bio | Famous Birthdays The Motor Museum in Miniature Alec Issigonis was born in the Year of the Horse. Issigonis was a good packaging designer. Style wise, the car has been identified as having a visual similarity to Lancia Aureliathe 1950-58 Lancia Aurelia saloon, with some Morris Oxford overtones and a traditional Alvis style grille added. His father was a successful shipbuilding engineer, whose own father was from the Greek island, Paros. IAN NICHOLLS recalls the day the two millionth rolled off the production line [], A team of the worlds leading motoring writers, along with voters on the internet, have short-listed the legendary Mini for the ultimate motoring accolade the international Car of the [], THE GUARDIAN Lord Stokes writes about the late Sir Alec Issigonis: Alec Issigonis was a very charming and persuasive person, and a brilliant innovative engineer with a considerable capacity for [], Rover Group consultant Sir Alec Issigonis writes to chairman Graham Day. Most events he entered were sprints and hillclimbs, but he also competed in some circuit races. BMC was producing over 11,000 Issigonis-designed front-wheel-drive models a week, with demand still exceeding production, which was continually increased.
Alec Issigonis - Etsy Issigonis had a reputation, deserved by all accounts, for arrogance and irascibility, an inability to suffer fools at all, and restricted his contact to as a small as a group as he could. Given his disrupted education, unusual background and the tough economic times that were the late 1920s, finding a job was not easy, but in 1928, and by now a British citizen in his own right, Issigonis took his first job in the motor industry, for Edward Gillett in London, through a networking contact he had made at Battersea. Another Mini! They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Young Alec grew up in a very affluent environment, with influences from Germany and Greece (he grew up speaking German and Greek), rather than Turkey and Britain. Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis ( 18. listopadu 1906 Smyrna - 2. jna 1988 Birmingham) byl ecko - britsk automobilov konstruktr narozen na zem dnenho Turecka. He was knighted in 1969 and was honored by the city of Oxford with a street named after him, Alec Issigonis Way. Dr.Ing. Updates? Alec Issigonis. *27/02/01 The new Mini which will go on sale in the UK summer 2001, was , being unveiled for the first time. I think you can see a narrower car in one of the pre-production photos, above. Ford clinging to the T too long was the same sort of corporate inertia that had VW clinging to the Bug too long. Copyright 2023. In 1936, he moved to Morris Motors Limited at Cowley working on an independent front suspension system for the Morris 10. Constantine married a German lady whose name was Hulda Prokopp and in 1906 they had a baby who they named Alexander Arnold Issigonis, or Alec to his family. : Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis , CBE, FRS, RDI 19061118-1988102 . He was knighted in 1969 and was honored by the city of Oxford with a street named after him, Alec Issigonis Way. After returning to England in 1922, he enrolled in engineering school, failing mathematics at every turn. The first front wheel drive car from BL after Issigoniss retirement was the Austin Allegro, still with the gearbox in the sump and without the obvious hatchback. He was involved in engine design as well, requesting unsuccessfully that BL build 4 and 6 cylinder engines for Mini variants. .
TOP 8 QUOTES BY ALEC ISSIGONIS | A-Z Quotes Nice to see that blue Morris Oxford just the same as our first car that I remember. ADO15, 16 & 17 (36792752942).jpg 1 712 1 936; 589 KB [citation needed] He considered it to be a vehicle that combined many of the luxuries and conveniences of a good motor car with a price suitable for the working classes in contrast to the Mini which was a spartan mode of conveyance with everything cut to the bone. During the Second World War, Britain was in control of the Suez Canal, which served as an important source of oil, but this changed during the so called Suez crisis in 1956. My doodles and sketches are not the work of an academic engineer. (first posted 10/24/2016) Alec Issigonis, along with Sir Henry Royce and perhaps Colin Chapman, has the greatest name recognition in the UK for any British car designer or engineer. MINI, official partner of Team GB and ParalympicsGB, has unveiled its new London 2012 special, Keith Adams Well, Christmas and Boxing Day are out of the way and the, The replacement for the Austin-Healey 3000 never took off, thanks in part to a poor, British Motor Holdings the joining of BMC and Jaguar, The cars : Mini (ADO15) development story Part One, Concepts and prototypes : BMC 9X (1968-87), Blog : Why the Italians beat us to a supermini by a decade, History : The Road to Perdition Part One, Interview : Alec Issigonis on the BMC 1100, Archive : Mini Shortlisted For Car Of The Century, Archive : Mini still sold at a loss. . Joseph Lowrey, [], The Mini hit its big landmark in 1969, a seismic year in the history of BMC>Rover. Yes, it ran like hell when operable as the owner treated it like an Army Jeep. . This isnt 1942. Alecs education details are not available at this time. Your article sure did him justice; thank you, Roger. I hope he knew that he changed the Automobile World for the better.
Alec Issigonis - Career - LiquiSearch Alec completed his education at an English boarding school, and in 1925, took a two month tour, by car, of Europe with his mother before returning to take a place at Battersea Polytechnic in south London, to study mechanical engineering. When he turned his attention to the ADO16, Issigonis continued his obsession with the maximisation of passenger space combined with the best possible road holding. The loss of British sovereignty led not only to a political defeat but also to an oil crisis. His name? It interested me as I had the honour of working with sir Alec for around 3 months. He [], DAILY EXPRESS By David Benson Harry Webster is a quiet, unassuming, generous man of 54. The task: a car with lots of space inside with minimum dimensions outside, seats for four passengers, impeccable driving characteristics, superior fuel economy, and a very affordable price.
Alec Issigonis Facts for Kids - Kiddle Im sure the Renault 4, 5, 6, and 16 had longitudinal engines. . One thing that I learnt the hard way well not the hard way, the easy way when youre designing a new car for production, never, never copy the opposition, declared Issigonis, when asked to summarise his approach to car design. A reliable car with excellent steering and cornering qualities, it was the first all-British car to pass the one million mark in sales; surviving models are still cherished by owners and collectors. Constantine was very proud of his British citizenship and Alec grew up in a traditional British type of household. [], The most comprehensive story youll ever read about the aborted 9X programme the ill-fated Mini replacement, engineered by the man who created the original. On October 2, 1988, he passed . Who are the richest people in the world? Decades later, despite enormous further developments, the vehicle has lost none of its initial charm. His mother was from Bavaria. [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. It was also a specialist low volume producer of expensive, exclusive sports saloons cars not now associated with Issigonis and was at the same crossroads that so many smaller, upscale producers had been. ), British automobile designer who created the best-selling, economical Mini and the perennially popular Morris Minor. Autokonstrukteur, GBPortrt mit Zigarette- 1959.
Sir Alec Issigonis - Driven To Write His father, a successful and wealthy shipbuilding engineer, was of Greek origin but held a British passport. The family had an engineering business making marine engines and pumps, and it was from observing his father at work that he determined to become an engineer. The typical American indifference to regular maintenance did not play well with this setup. His father died in 1922, at which point he and his mother moved to the U.K.. Alecs father, Constantine Issigonis, who was born in Smyrna in 1872, studied in England, and subsequently returned to Smyrna, keeping the engineering business going through the First World War and maintaining his British citizenship. The [], CARS AND DRIVERS by GEOFFREY CHARLES Whatever the outcome of the BMH-Leyland merger in model rationalization, intensified marketing or expansion-and any joint project will not appear for at least 3 [], MOTOR WHY IS THE ADO16? He was appointed to this post by Lords successor, Sir George Harriman, who was even more in awe of him than Lord was, but also was even more unable to control and guide Issigonis. He took advantage of other peoples suspension designs, Moultons rubber cones and the isolastic, as they freed up more space. Austin Healey Sprites , 3000s Austin Americas, MG Midget, MGAs MGBs Mg 1100s I had many of each model.
His mother was Bavarian, the daughter of a brewer. By October 1957, Issigonis had shown Lord a working prototype and the decision had been made to manufacture the car, using the existing BMC A series engine.
An advanced 4-speed fully automatic transmission was offered in these that lived in the sump and shared the engine oil, just like the manual gearbox. Prior to his death, Alec and his mother travelled overland to London. Whos the richest Entrepreneur in the world. Even as Britain entered the 1960s, product planning remained something of an alien concept to its native carmakers, the majority of whom viewed such matters as being the sort of recondite nonsense invented in the United States, and best left there. Alec Issigonis Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, CBE, FRS, RDI (Alec Issigonis) was born on 18 November 1906 in Smyrna in Greece (now Izmir, Turkey) and would become world-renowned for designing the Mini and Morris Minor for BMC. The cars design with its front wheel drive and independent suspension provided good road handling, but Issigonis had scant regard for passenger comfort. Sticks in my mind I read a road test that put engine speed at 60 around 4,000rpm. The Renault 14 was transversely engined, from 1976.
Alec Issigonis - Wikipedia Bahasa Melayu, ensiklopedia bebas Thank you very much for a wonderful biography. Encouraged by the success of the Morris Minor, Issigonis continued his design work at Morris (including work on a replacement for the Minor with a transverse 4 cylinderengine with an endon gearbox) until the merger with the Austin in 1952 to form BMC. Striving to ensure that as much space as possible was allocated to the passengers, Issigonis used Moultons compact rubber suspension and had Dunlop build 10 inch wheels and tyres just for the Mini purely for reasons of space efficiency. Alec Issigonis was a hugely . At the end of 1955, Issigonis was recruited back into BMC, this time into the Austin plant at Longbridge, by its chairman Sir Leonard Lord, to design a new model family of three cars. Issigonis' first cousin once removed was Bernd Pischetsreider, responsible . His iconoclasm ensured that, despite the constraints of working in an industry where the size and complexity of the process meant that even the most forceful of designers was only one member of a large team, Issigonis cars bore his own stamp from the 1948 Morris Minor to the 1969 Maxi. Issigonis had no input to the Marina (other than it using substantial elements from the Morris Minor of course) or the Allegro, as BMC had passed a thin very development programme to Leyland in 1968, largely due to financial pressures.
MG 1100/1300 Register - NAMGBR Look what happened to Alan Turing. It amounted to no more than surface rust on the chassis. Noch ein Mini! An amazing man, and someone who would probably never rise to prominence in todays auto industry. Alec Issigonis was a Scorpio and was born in the G.I. He despised such luxuries as radios and comfortable seats, once stating I would like people to sit on nails to be extremely uncomfortable all the time. and declaring that an uncomfortable driver is an alert driver. When he officially retired from BLMC in November 1971, Issigonis was retained by BLMC on an exclusive consultancy agreement, signed off by and reporting to the Chairman, Donald Stokes. I was eight when my dad bought one of those brand new cars at a reduced price from the NYC dealer $850 for an Austin 850 ($6,800 in 2016 money) The strengths of this sign are being resourceful, brave, passionate, a true friend, while weaknesses can be distrusting, jealous, secretive and violent. Alviss options for body shell production were being reduced, at the same as the estimated costs of the body manufacture doubled. He was reluctant to consider features such as large boots or hatchbacks, or engine access, as important. Alec Issigonis The public don't know what they want; it's my job to tell them.
Alec Issigonis | Classic Cars Wiki | Fandom Generation also known as The Greatest Generation. By 1969 Fiat had also followed with the 128, and by 1974 Peugeot, VW and Renault had transverse engine hatchbacks as well.
Issigonis Prototype 1970 Mini 9X - atwellwilson.org.uk Etsy Search for items or shops Close search Skip to Content Sign in 0 Cart Cyber Sales Event Jewelry & Accessories Clothing & Shoes He remained on the BL books as a consultant until 1988, shortly before his death. If it was front engined, was it to be rear wheel or front wheel drive? The XC (experimental car) code names assigned for the new cars were XC/9001, for a large comfortable car, XC/9002, for a medium-sized family car, and XC/9003, for a small town car. meantime, John preferred his psychedelic Rolls .. Roger, hats off for this excellent treatment of an engineering legend. For many years he was known informally as Arragonis, and was either sufficiently confident in himself or sufficiently lacking in understanding to use that name himself on occasions.
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