Toyota gets on its (Moulton) bike

Toyota, the world’s second-largest car maker, has turned to an unlikely British source for inspiration on suspension. The Japanese giant has come knocking at the Wiltshire door of 84-year-old British engineer Alex Moulton.

Today, Moulton is best known for exquisite and expensive bicycles. However, the project he is carrying out for Toyota is belated acknowledgment of the largely unsung role he played in the development of the original Mini with his friend and colleague Sir Alec Issigonis.

While Issigonis is credited with the general layout that caused a revolution in small-car design, Moulton developed the rubber cone springs that saved space and provided the Mini’s comfort and stability, whatever the load. He also appreciated that the interconnection of front and rear suspension would compensate for the changes in pitch to which small cars are prone.

Such a system could not be readied in time for the Mini in 1959 but was introduced three years later, first on the Morris 1100. British Leyland later abandoned Moulton’s Hydrolastic and Hydragas suspension systems, but he continued to improve them, and Toyota has been sufficiently intrigued to award him a contract for further development of interconnected suspension systems for small cars.

- From The Sunday Times Driving Section, August 15, 2004