[Tone]

I may be wrong here, but what, if anything, was actually "made" in Oxford?

It seems to me that whilst everything was of course assembled at the plant, very little, in its finished state, did not come through the factory gates.

Is there any info. on the UK/foreign country of origin of these components?

(Doesn't the plant look spacious and clean, compared to when the legions of workers under BL made their widgets?)

[Nameless]

The body';s made there, and that's a big bit of it ( Admittedly pressed elsewhere ) And a lot of the components are made in UK, and assembled there. There are no car plants now who manufacture large volumes of things on-site, it's not financially viable. - I was actually impressed by the amount of work that is done at oxford.
Visited Nissan a few months ago - and it has a similar amount of assembly ( But they do have pressing and casting ! ). But the Nissan factory was leaps and bounds ahead of Oxford in utilisation of workers. I couldn't believe the amount of people at oxford - particulalry in assembly, standing around doing nothing. There are half as many at Sunderland and they are making 3 different models on the same line. But it's great to see the Cowley plant surviving in whatever form. ( Can't help thinking it's got too many line workers though, or is that the Lean Manufacturing Engineer in me?

[tim.stephenson]

A lot of the car parts are made in the midlands,

speedo & rev counter - redditch
wiring looms - 10% rubery ( 1/2 mile from longbridge ) other 90% in Romania.
Door trims and dash - another Redditch factory.

Where is the rest made ?

[Super Dooper CooperS]

And body panels pressed in shrewsbury (and swindon), and sound deadening manufactured in halesowen!

[Nameless]

Subframes made in Newton Aycliffe

[Deuce Coop]

I empty the beer cans for the exhaust right here in the living room

[Tone]

Cheers guys.

[Goonery]

The existing car was designed pretty much at Longbridge, so was geared for Rover style production, moving it to Oxford did'nt give an opportunity to make the assembly operation more modular, the 2006 version will be much more efficient. The parts content from UK is about 65% if you do'nt count the engine which is from Brazil.
Problem is that UK suppliers are still too expensive, and parts from former eastern Euroland or Spain for example are more cost effective, even when you count the shipping to uk. As for guys standing around, well most of the Assembly operators work their nuts off! The bystanders are probably QC or maintenance, or in some cases management. With the workwear, you can't tell who is who half the time!

[Tone]

So - if you include the engine - well over half of the MINI components are sourced from outside the UK.

Just a thought.