Mini production at Oxford, UK

[ITSv40]

'er indoors had a Mk4 Fiesta for 17 years and did 170,000mls in it. Whilst it was a good reliable car I never warmed to it. Time came to replace it and she announces 'I want a Mini Cooper and it must be red'. So started the hunt for a red Cooper.

It didn't take long to find the perfect example, a 2007 Second Generation Cooper with full service history and 50,000mls - that was in 2016. She still has it and now on 100,000mls with no issues apart from a failed interior blower fan.

It is extremely well put together and a joy to work on. A little cramped in places, but putting it in 'service mode' gives sufficient room to work on. I have completely fallen in love with it and a real hoot to drive on the B road twisties.

Style wise I think the first and second gen stayed true to the original mini concept, albeit with a modern twist, however, from then on they were fed increasing amounts of steriods and have now lost the way completely.

[Wagon Sailor]

The two Maxis I owned in the 1980s cost about £300 between them and ran for a total mileage into six figures.
I'm not sure if I'd have one now, though. It'd be a toss up between a 1750HL Maxi and a Renault 16 TX.



Back to Minis.

Our last one was a Mayfair with an A+ engine. A bit of fun, especially when part of massive club convoy en route to Castle Combe, but not a serious car for serious mileages. At least it didn't scare us as much as the 1380cc van did.

[Volvocano]

Originally Posted by Ulrikas PA

21 years of employing people making a successful product has to be a good thing.

If Rover Group had miraculously continued and doubly miraculously found the money to invest in new products (rather than cheap facelifts), it would probably have looked at its history and decided that a new, bigger Mini would be a good idea.

Or a Maxi.

Er, you do realise MINI was a Rover Group design don't you? Even though BMW forced that awful Chrysler engine on them. (which proved BMW's ambition was to asset strip and dump Rover all along.) Also the new small/mid car platform (R30) Rover had invested tens of millions developing went missing when BMW sold Rover to the Phoenix chancers - this platform was designed to be front engined but front, rear or four wheel drive - many suspect the new generation BMW 1 series was Rover R30. Of course what was left of Rover after BMW had finished with them were not allowed to develop four wheel drive vehicles (a clause Ford had them bake in when they bought Land Rover) and they had no new platforms left as BMW had stolen them.

[DaveNP]

Reading the comments on the Maxi size of the BMW Mini I did a quick comparison check of my V70 and the wife's KIA Stonic. Now the Stonic is the higher roof version of the Rio which is not the smallest KIA offering but the next one up. Unsurprisingly the roof line is a few inches higher than the V70, but the width is within 1mm (that's 40thou in old school) and it is about 2 feet shorter, so a modern small hatchback is just 2 foot shorter than a good old Volvo Estate, as has been suggested if BL/Rover were still making Minis they too would probably have grown up to be bigger than their ancestors, that's probably partly fashion and partly to get the structure required to get through modern crash safety tests.
As I said before I will always have fond memories of the original Mini having had one as a first car, but that was 40 years ago, and I'm not sure I'd want one as a daily driver now.

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by DaveNP

Reading the comments on the Maxi size of the BMW Mini I did a quick comparison check of my V70 and the wife's KIA Stonic. Now the Stonic is the higher roof version of the Rio which is not the smallest KIA offering but the next one up. Unsurprisingly the roof line is a few inches higher than the V70, but the width is within 1mm (that's 40thou in old school) and it is about 2 feet shorter, so a modern small hatchback is just 2 foot shorter than a good old Volvo Estate, as has been suggested if BL/Rover were still making Minis they too would probably have grown up to be bigger than their ancestors, that's probably partly fashion and partly to get the structure required to get through modern crash safety tests.
As I said before I will always have fond memories of the original Mini having had one as a first car, but that was 40 years ago, and I'm not sure I'd want one as a daily driver now.

Agreed, cars have got so much bigger, and heavier. The other day I saw a nearly new Vauxhall Corsa in Tesco's carpark next to an F-reg (Mk 1) Fiesta. You'd almost think the Fiesta would fit in the boot of the Corsa...

And coming up the M5 earlier in the week in my Ford Ranger I very nearly ran over a young girl in a Fiat Seicento (had to copy and paste that as I couldn't spell it). Why would anyone let their kids drive one of those in this day and age? I wouldn't....

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by Volvocano

Er, you do realise MINI was a Rover Group design don't you? Even though BMW forced that awful Chrysler engine on them. (which proved BMW's ambition was to asset strip and dump Rover all along.) Also the new small/mid car platform (R30) Rover had invested tens of millions developing went missing when BMW sold Rover to the Phoenix chancers - this platform was designed to be front engined but front, rear or four wheel drive - many suspect the new generation BMW 1 series was Rover R30. Of course what was left of Rover after BMW had finished with them were not allowed to develop four wheel drive vehicles (a clause Ford had them bake in when they bought Land Rover) and they had no new platforms left as BMW had stolen them.

I think that's mostly right - but I'm not so sure that BMW set out to "asset strip" Rover, although in effect they did in the end, I don't think they set out to, all things considered I think they may have come off worse.

BMW bought Rover for £800M at a time when there were waiting lists for some of their models (around 1993/1994 I think) which I think was more about their current owners - British Aerospace - streamlining as they exited civilian aircraft to focus on military equipment. BMW famously sold the car division of Rover for £10 in 2000 but they also sold Land Rover for just under £2Bn.

However there where times when they were consistently pumping several million pounds a week into the wider business to keep the payroll going. I know someone who has worked in the testing department at JLR for over 30 years and he's adamant that the first X5 prototypes where assembled at Solihull circa 1996/1997 - as soon as the mechanicals were sorted it was whisked over to Germany for finishing. That's hearsay though...

Phoecnix Group who bought Rover then started the real asset stripping, raping and pillahing selling off almost the vowels in Rover's name and renting them back. They would have known the inevitable outcome of stripping the business of assets and cash several years before they announced the collapse - cynically in the same week that campaigning started for the general election in 2005.

Was the demise of Rover inevitable? Well 1 year after BMW bought Rover, VAG Group acquired Skoda.... join the dots.

Also interesting is Ford did insist that Rover could never sell all wheel drive vehicles citing the similarities in their names (Land Rover/Rover). And BMW still own the rights and names to many historic car brands such as Triumph and Austin.

[Ulrikas PA]

Yes, the Phoenix four took out £9m each after paying £10 for it, and then saying that's because they took big risks! Well I suppose the lawns in the 400 acre estate in France wouldn't cut themselves.

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by Ulrikas PA

Yes, the Phoenix four took out £9m each after paying £10 for it, and then saying that's because they took big risks! Well I suppose the lawns in the 400 acre estate in France wouldn't cut themselves.

I bet they took out a lot more than that... they sold off most of the property (at low values into other companies that had interests in), the logistics division, the parts division, and quite a lot more in very complicated deals that would see them getting income from it for years to come.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...0m-552687.html

Found this article, not sure how factual it is :

http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/rov...nd-of-line.htm

One of the reasons for the rapid decline in car sales towards the end of BMW's ownership was the sudden ending of production of the Rover 100 models, following the widescale introduction of NCAP car crash testing and minimum standards laid down by the EU. The 100 (Metro) still sold in strong numbers to a loyal customer base despite it being very dated. This was the horrible result that ended the Metro :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUs-h23sp7M

[Ulrikas PA]

... And all they got was being banned from being directors for a few years. As if that would matter to them.

[Existential Crisis]

Originally Posted by eagle58

I loathe "MINIs"!

A MINI Countryman looks biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigger than a L/R Evoque!

"MINI" my backside!

Absolutely adore mine, I've put almost 50k on it, overall likely the best car I've owned