The story behind the creation of one of Britain’s most beloved automobile icons has a Malta connection: the father of Mini creator Alec Issigonis is buried at Ta’ Braxia cemetery in Pietà.
Some 50 Mini enthusiasts gathered with their classic cars yesterday morning ahead of the 92nd year anniversary of the death of Constantine Issigonis, whose grave was discovered this year by Pablo Vassallo, president of the Malta Mini Owners Club.
Mr Vassallo said he first became aware that Constantine Issigonis had died in Malta after discovering a throwaway reference in a biography of his son, Sir Alec Issigonis, the Greek-born British engineer known as the creator of the Mini, the Morris Minor and several other classic British cars.
The search for the final resting place took Mr Vassallo the better part of a year as he trawled through the scant burial records from the period and even took to searching the gravestones at Ta’ Braxia one by one before finally locating the grave.
Mr Vassallo’s research showed that Constantine Issigonis, born in the Greek community in Smyrna (now Izmir), Turkey, had been evacuated to Malta by the Royal Marines in September 1922 due to the ongoing Greco-Turkish war.
This icon we love and treasure only came to be because of what happened in Malta
On arriving in Malta, the family was quarantined in the Lazaretto on Manoel Island. Constantine Issigonis had contracted an unspecified disease.
The illness led to his internment in a hospital in Attard, which Mr Vassallo believes may have been the same facility that now houses Mount Carmel Hospital.
Although he was expected to recover (his wife had even moved into a house in Attard to be closer to her husband), he lost his sight and eventually succumbed to his illness on June 1, 1923, at the age of 51.
He was buried in Pietà and his wife left Malta for the UK with the young Alec, who studied engineering at Battersea Polytechnic, in London, and later got a job with the Austin Motor Company.
Mr Vassallo believes that Constantine Issigonis, who had himself worked as an engineer in Britain before the outbreak of the war, would have encouraged his son to follow in his footsteps and his early death could have given his son the determination that led to his groundbreaking success. Alec Issigonis, nicknamed “the Greek god” by his contemporaries, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1967 and awarded a knighthood in 1969.
“If all this hadn’t happened, none of these classic cars would exist,” Mr Vassallo said. “This icon we love and treasure only came to be because of what happened in Malta.”