Alex Moulton, a British automotive engineer who created a small-wheeled bicycle that fired a trend in the 1960s and became the forerunner of the collapsible, portable bikes of today, died on Dec. 9 in Bath, England. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by his grandnephew Shaun Moulton, the chief executive of the Moulton Bicycle Company, which Alex Moulton founded and which still makes by hand bicycles based on his original design in Bradford-on-Avon, where Mr. Moulton lived.

Mr. Moulton, who had made a number of innovations in automobile suspension systems, began toying with a small-wheel design for an adult bicycle in the late 1950s. His interest was partly spurred by gasoline rationing in Britain during the Suez crisis, which began when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, an act that threatened to halt oil shipments to Western Europe from the Persian Gulf.

But the design was also fostered by his own engineer’s determination to make things better: “The Moulton bicycle was born out of my resolve to challenge and improve upon the classic bicycle,” he said.