BMW has announced it will invest around $386.9 million in its United Kingdom operations. The cash will be divvied up amongst its Oxford manufacturing facility, Swindon steel body pressing plant and its Birmingham engine facility, all in order to help Mini keep pace with a new global growth strategy. BMW says the investment will allow Mini to maintain larger production volumes while simultaneously rolling out up to 10 new models in the near future. While that figure likely includes models like the Mini Paceman, BMW is keeping details on any other future models to itself for the time being. The investments are planned to be completed by the end of 2015.

All told, BMW has invested more than $2.7 billion in the company's UK manufacturing network since 2000, though Mini will likely still need even more production capacity to keep up with the brand's planned growth. While the manufacturer wants to contract that volume out to a satellite builder, no final decision on who that partner will be has been made just yet.

Check out the original article and full press release at Autoblog...

 

MINI (BMW) signed an MoU for NEDCAR to assemble cars. Replace Austrian production? New models?

 

Mini found a niche in the market and it worked out well for them. Now they want to ruin it by producing 10 new models. Sometimes bigger is not better!

 

Agreed. Plus currently the limited numbers keep demand high and resale prices up. And on a sentimental note if the market is flooded, wave a final goodbye to the Mini wave.

I'd rather see them invest in a more solid, reliable build that's up to BMW caliber.

 

I had a Jeep once, long ago, and I never was into the wave thing. And with the MINI I am not either. If I am waved to I absolutely wave back, I'm not completely rude, lol. But call me Larry David, I am just not into the 'stop and chat' kind of thing, this includes waving to strangers. I'm just always in my own world of thought and creative processing.


I agree, invest in less damned squeaks in the car...PLEASE! Love my car but those damn squeaks and rattles...oy vey.

 

Agreed!

(but commercialism, corporate greed, and big business will always strive to make more money year after year...sigh...)