Just to follow up...

We visited Plant Oxford today - even though I've been before I still find it such an amazing experience, to walk into a building where hundreds of robots are towering above you and working non-stop feels like being in some film about the future where robots rule. Got hit a couple of times by sparks flying 15ft into the air - my partner screamed at one point, Terry (the tour guide) told her not to worry it's what they call a 'robot kiss'.

A robot costs £50,000 and is expected to last 15 years. Interestingly there are still robots working since 2001 - all their spare parts are marked up R50, I guess the only remains to show it was built there. The rest of the robots are 2006 (R56) onwards.

Currently 1 MINI drives off the line every 53 seconds! We saw many Roadsters (and Coupes) and even in body-in-white form they looked amazing. In the assembly hall Terry picked a random car (a chili red roadster) and informed us that it was heading to a customer in Canada. (Still all MINIs produced are already sold and built to order). Pepper white is currently the biggest selling colour.

There's a lot of extension work going on there at the moment and the future is looking very bright.

Sadly no photos were allowed and it was foggy in the morning so I only got a rubbish outside photo. If you ever get the chance to go then do, it's a real eye opener

I didn't get to see my 9th MINI in production - until next week it remains as sheets of metal..

 

I am envious. Wish we could take that tour. Would be like a kid in a candy store. Did you happen to see my Roadster while you were there?

 

Oddly enough there were hardly any blue MINIs in the assembly hall - all I saw was a reef blue convertible.. I forgot to ask them if they paint the same colour in batches - it seemed likely as about 10 red MINIs arrived in the hall together. No spice orange MINIs either..

 

Thanks for the posting. A visit to the "MINI production triangle" would be a real treat!