Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis was born to a Greek family in the Ottoman town of Smyrna (Izmir). Because his father had gained British nationality, the Issigonis family were evacuated to Malta during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22 and then moved to the UK. After attracting the attention of Austin, Alec Issigonis was recruited to Morris in 1936, completing a design for the suspension of what became the MG Y-type. During the war Issigonis worked on the Morris Mosquito project which saw light as the Morris Minor Series MM in 1948 and the larger Morris Oxford/Morris Six (and Wolseley equivalents). It is thought that Issigonis did most of the work on the Morris Oxford Series II, although this car was launched after he had moved to Alvis. Returning to the Austin part of BMC in 1955, he started work on two advanced design cars. The smaller car was launched in 1959 as the Morris Mini Minor, and the larger one launched as the Austin 1800 in 1964. Issigonis also developed the ADO 16 1100/1300 range of cars as well as the hatchback Austin Maxi.