Biography issigonis official

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.^&