Travel: Make time for Oxford’s cult car

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Mini: 60 Years. The Mini raced to the front in competitions as well, winning the Monte Carlo Rally four times from 1964 to 1967. At Turf Tavern, Kevin McMahon, the barkeep and a Mini aficionado, is extremely knowledgeable—and chatty.

Issigonis was “known to be a minimiser who focused on the fundamentals while Cooper was a maximiser who aimed to make the most of the experience. The dichotomy of their approaches led to a small car that completely transformed the idea of what an automobile could be—small in size, big on driving fun," he says. The Mini was originally built by BMC, but BMW acquired its later parent company, Rover, in 1994.

The German carmaker sold most of the Rover Group in 2000, but retained the Mini brand. “In October 2000, the last and 5,387,862nd original Mini came off the production line. The next year, BMW launched the new-generation Mini, followed by other versions like Countryman, Clubman, Cooper Works, and more," McMahon says.

Plant Swindon was established by Pressed Steel Company in 1955 to help produce car bodies, he says. “Plant Oxford is the largest and oldest of the UK production plants; it marked its 110th anniversary in 2023," he says, urging me to take the car plant tour. The 90-minute tour takes you through every step in the production process of a Mini.

Starting in the body shop, it showcases how the 650 employees and 1,200 robots work together to produce the much-loved car from steel sheets. An excited throng of people enters the Press Shop, where the 350 varied pressed parts for the Mini body shell (produced by Plant Swindon) are put together by automated production presses equipped with top-class electronic control systems. Everything seems to work like clockwork, with nary a sound to be