Intro: The Cowley plant near Oxford has quite a tradition. Morris Motors was established there before the 1st World War. The company symbolizes the fate of the British motor industry. Morris Motors and Austin Motors joined their forces in 1953 to establish British Motors Corporation. This business entity became massively overgrown during the decades. It absorbed such makes as the Rover, Wolseley, Riley and Triumph (and for a short period Jaguar as well!).
By the early 1980s the group, then called British Leylands was in serious trouble and the Japanese Honda company came to the rescue. After helping in the development of new models much to everyone's surprise the business entity was sold to BMW as Rover Cars. The Cowley plant were the test ground for the Rover 75 which was launched in 1998. When Rover Cars were finally sold to the Phoenix Group, the plant remained in BMW hands.
They have reorganized the plant and installed the production line of the revived Mini there. On April 28th, 2000 Plant Oxford became a 100 per cent subsidiary of BMW (UK) Holdings Ltd. as BMW UK Manufacturing Ltd.
160037 Minis were produced in 2002 with sales of 144119 units. With the addition of a diesel-version the chic city-car was set to become more popular so it is no surprise that in 2003 production rose 9 per cent to 174366 units. |
