The Real Influencers: Alec Issigonis

Alec Issigonis is probably the greatest British car engineer of them all which, when you consider the list includes both Chapman and Royce, really is saying something. He was an independent minded genius whose masterpiece was the Mini, surely the most cleverly designed and influential car in British motor industry history.

Its front-wheel drive/transverse engine configuration was studied and widely copied and its astonishing space efficiency and great packaging was at least as clever as its drivetrain. An unprecedented 80 per cent of its volume was habitable: four-fifths living room and one-fifth engine room. It was a truly a car for the people. I would argue that the Issigonis Mini was the best packaged car of all time, and surely great packaging – as opposed to style – is great design?

It was also unusually quick and nimble, and enjoyed excellent roadholding, calculated at some 70 per cent higher than the average car of the period. This was a happy corollary of its smallness, light weight, clever front-drive mechanical configuration and its ingenious progressive rate rubber springs. This, Issigonis claimed at launch, gave greater margins of safety. He would later lament that, as drivers realised its abilities, so they began to use up that margin.