Alex Moulton + Mini

      Alex Moulton + Mini

      Suspension engineer Dr Alex Moulton was a fundamental part of the design team that worked on the original Mini back in the late 1950s. He gave us some insights into the development of the Car of the 20th Century - and his opinion on the BMW Mini of the 21st century

      After the Second World War I was determined to move my family firm — Spencer-Moulton based at Bradford on Avon — from the manufacture of rubber suspension for railway coaches, and into automotive suspension. I had heard of Alec Issigonis by reputation and we met socially before we worked together. Issigonis was working at Alvis in Coventry at that time, on a new large car to replace their (famous but dated) “Grey Lady” model. He was given a free hand to do what he liked, more or less. He had heard of an experimental rubber-suspended Morris Minor that Jack Daniels and I had built at Cowley. It had been driven over 1000 miles on the pave at MIRA, an unimaginably tough test that the standard car would not have been able to withstand.
      Following my experimental developments of the mid ‘50s. Issigonis was determined that he should have interconnected fluid and rubber suspension on his Alvis. Interconnecting front and rear suspension units with fluid in pipes meant that the pitch mode was separated from bounce and roll. As a result, the car moved smoothly over a bump in the road, giving a much higher quality ride.’ The Alvis was an interesting technical exercise, but it never reached the production line.
      “Leonard Lord and George Harriman had formed BMC in tbe mid ‘50s by merging Austin and Morris. Lord was determined to make a range of new and innovative cars, and he plucked Alec Issigonis back from Alvis to design them. The Suez crisis occurred in 1957 and petrol rationing meant that tiny bubble cars, mostly of German manufacture and including some BMW-Isetta models, began to flood the roads. Lord wanted to sweep them away and so Issigonis got the order to build the smallest of his new cars first, a proper miniature four-seater. Issigonis told Lord that he wanted me to be involved with my suspensions and so I went to ‘the Kremlin’ at Longbridge to meet him. He looked at my portfolio of experimental work and said, ‘If you’ve done this, you’ll do more.’ He was very gruff but I got the OK.

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