Not an attempt to replicate a twitter storm here but the juxaposition of Greg mentioning working for Spen King and my visit yesterday to the British Motor Museum at Gaydon made me think about the opening question. Issigonis's life and work figures strongly there and they currently have special exhibition on 50 years of the Range Rover.
Clearly Issigonis created something revolutionary in the Mini then sort of scaled it up, like for like, into the 1100 and 1800 adding hydroelastic on the way.
But while one of his two key concepts , the transverse engine, has survived his other core concept, a car with a wheel at each corner and maximum interior space has largely vanished in today's much larger , "pimped up" cars .
That's partially due to the need to have lots of crushable space to meet the crash rules of course.
Spen King gave us some very clever ideas too , often cheap but effective like the Rover 3500 rear suspension plus of course he gave us the Range Rover.
That vehicle is the grand daddy of most modern SUV's which have come to be far more mainstream than space efficient cars in the Issigonis mould.
So I left the museum thinking Spen King may wel have been as influential as Issigonis 50 years later?