PressClub Canada · Article.
British roots, European character: MINI celebrates 100 years of automotive production in Oxford with a transcontinental tour.
Tue Mar 12 20:00:00 CET 2013 Press Release
MINI convoy travels to eight former classic Mini production locations across Europe – Cross-border tour kicks off anniversary celebrations at the British MINI plant.
Press Contact.
Frank Strebe
BMW Group
Tel: +1-905-428-5005
Fax: +1-905-428-5086
send an e-mail
Munich/Oxford. At MINI Plant Oxford preparations are
afoot for a quite extraordinary anniversary: cars have been produced
in Oxford for 100 years now and the history of the plant, like its
present, is closely intertwined with the one-off British small car.
Where today the MINI is produced, the classic Mini – one of the most
important models built in Oxford over the years since 1913 – was also
born. The classic Mini embellished its British roots with a very
European character; Oxford’s assembly figures were bolstered by Mini
cars pieced together over the decades in European pastures beyond the
brand’s native borders. To kick off the celebrations, five
Oxford-built MINIs are embarking on a tour that will take them to
eight former classic Mini production locations the length and breadth
of Europe.
The first classic Mini rolled off the production line in Oxford
on 8 May 1959, and another 602,816 were to follow in the years up to
1968. During this time, the Oxford factory also built CKD (Completely
Knocked Down) vehicle sets to be assembled in other locations. The
tour undertaken by the five current MINI models will bring back to
mind the cross-border nature of Mini production as it takes the cars –
plus an accompanying fleet of media representatives and the MINI
Community – to eight former production locations from 13 – 27 March.
MINI fans can follow the progress of the tour on the specially
launched website www.since1913.co.uk. A tracking
function shows the MINI convoy’s latest stop-off as it charts its
course across Europe. Detailed updates on the journey and stops along
the way can also be found on the MINI Facebook page www.facebook.com/mini and
online community forum www.minispace.com. The final
destination on the tour will be Oxford – the home of the brand past
and present – where 100 years of car production will be celebrated on
28 March.
The tour of former production locations covers more than
10,500 kilometres (over 6,500 miles) and includes stops in Novo Mesto
(Slovenia), the Italian city of Milan, the former production plant in
Malta, the Portuguese town of Vendas Novas, Pamplona in Spain, Seneffe
in Belgium, Amersfoort in Holland and the Irish capital Dublin. Only
three of these eight locations are still home to car production today.
But all of them count the classic Mini as an important part of their
local industrial history, one that is about to roar back into the
public consciousness. Looking further afield still, CKD classic Mini
sets were also dispatched from Oxford for local assembly in many other
parts of the world, such as Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Uruguay,
Venezuela and South Africa.
Today, MINI production is concentrated among far fewer
locations. All UK operations are carried out within the MINI
production triangle, taking in the press shop in Swindon and the Hams
Hall engine factory in Birmingham, as well as the Oxford assembly
plant. The BMW Group is set to pump around £500 million into the
expansion and modernisation of its production capacities in Great
Britain up to 2014, bringing the company’s total investment in its
British production plants to more than £1.5 billion since 2000. MINI
is now one of the country’s three largest automotive producers. Five
models in the current seven-strong MINI family roll off the line in
Oxford, but MINI production can still claim a European flavour. The
MINI Countryman and MINI Paceman are built by production and
development partner Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria, although they too
include a number of components marked “Made in Great Britain” –
notably engines from Hams Hall.