The 200,000th BMW-built Mini came off the assembly line at the company’s Plant Oxford on Monday and has been donated to the Oxford Children’s Hospital Campaign as a raffle prize.
The chilli red Cooper with white ‘contrast roof’ is one of over 150,000 Minis to be produced at the Oxford plant this year.
BMW Group’s other UK operations will also donate £50,000 to the campaign.
BMW’s Mini plant at Cowley, on the outskirts of the ancient university town of Oxford, was built as a Morris Motors factory and was integrated into the giant British Motor Corporation organisation in the early 1950s. Most of the original buildings have been demolished and much of the original site has been sold off for housing and a large supermarket.
Before being turned into BMW’s Mini production centre, Plant Oxford was Rover’s large car plant, building such models as the 800 series, assembling the hand-built MG RV8, welding and painting Rolls-Royce body shells and, most recently, building the Rover 75 line.
When BMW sold Rover to the Phoenix Group two years ago, the half-finished Mini production line was transferred from Rover’s Longbridge plant near Birmingham to Oxford while the 75 line was moved from Oxford to Longbridge – in just six weeks.
