An Inside Look at How MINI Coopers Are Made at it’s Oxford Plant

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The MINI Oxford Plant is the spiritual home of the brand since new MNI production started in 2001. We’ve visited the plant previously in 2004 and found it full of new energy and incredible automation. But a lot has changed since then, and there are a lot more MINIs, and we wanted to see this change ourselves.

At the time of our visit in late 2023, MINI was still producing the electric F56, which added even more complexity to the production line. It’s important to note that, since the video was first published, BMW announced it was pausing plans to build the J01 and J05 at Oxford.

When we last visited the plant in 2004 it was still ramping up various aspects of production. For instance the stamping that happened offsite back then is now in a separate facility on the plant grounds. There’s also a new level of automation – especially in that stamping plant. In fact it seems almost devoid of humans as we walked through a sea of busy robots twisting and turning metal and nearly complete chassis. 

The immediate take away in seeing this part of production is the precision throughout the process. BMW takes the structural design and build of its cars seriously as it had several high-profile issues in the late 90’s and early 2000s with sub-frames. Our guide explained the levels of engineering that goes into every weld and the safety checks that happen throughout the process. The result is a level of precision that wouldn’t seem out of place in an aerospace factory.

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