MINI Oxford plant celebrates its centenary

New MINI arriving later this year

MINI is celebrating the 100^th anniversary of its Oxford plant where later this year the all-new MINI will enter production.

Back in 1913 when the factory started its operations there were only 20 cars / week manufactured and up until now more than 11.65 million cars from 14 brands have been made. Over the years, approximately 500,000 people worked at the Oxford facility, with the peak in the early 60s when 28,000 people were employed. At the moment, there are 3,700 workers making up to 900 MINIs daily. So far they've built 2.25 million MINIs since production commenced.

Later this year the new generation of the MINI will be launched and is rumored to be bigger than the current model. It will be offered with several gasoline and diesel engines, including a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder from the BMW 1-Series. The Cooper S is likely to adopt a 1.6-liter turbo with 178 bhp (132 kW) while the JCW will probably be uprated to 217 bhp (162 kW

from Worldcarfans