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MINI Celebrates 15 Years Since the New MINI Hatch Started Production

After the original Mini has been produced by the British Motor Corporation, British Leyland, Rover Group, and British Aerospace, the BMW Group bought the rights to the brand in 1994 and stylized the nameplate in caps lock. Still, the MINI Hatch as we know it today started production at the Oxford Plant in 2001.
MINI Plant Oxford 1 photo
Photo: MINI
Fifteen years have passed since then. In Bulldog years, that’s about 90 years according to Pedigree’s dog age calculator. Canines aside, 15 years since BMW put its mark on the most quintessential small car of the United Kingdom calls for a celebration. Frank Bachmann, the managing director of the MINI Plant Oxford, will take it from here:

“MINI is an iconic British brand that has made a remarkable journey over the past 15 years. In that time we’ve more than doubled our capacity and gone from producing just one model to an entire range of MINIs that have proved hugely popular with customers around the world.”

Bachmann also discloses the fact that the MINI Plant Oxford manufactures 1,000 cars to individual order per day, which is a huge challenge in terms of logistics and supply chain. Nevertheless, the three million milestone is expected to be hit by the plant later this year, which works out at 200,000 cars per year on average.

The MINI lineup has been fundamental to this output. From the MINI One to the five-door hatchback, Clubman, and John Cooper Works pocket rockets, Plant Oxford manufactures them all. The export market has also been friendly to the brand considering that 80 percent of production is exported to 110 countries.

In related news, the MINI brand is preparing to launch a fifth model to make its lineup more appealing to markets such as China. Word on the street is the model in question will be a compact-sized sedan, which could bear the name of Riley. Why Riley? Well, a Mini-based Riley Elf sedan was sold in the 1960s and MINI owns the trademark, so that's that.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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