Just back from seeing the F56 in production at the MINI Oxford Plant.
We were shown around by John - a now retired guy of wisdom & wit who started working there in the 60s.
If you live near enough to take a tour (normally 3 per day - last tour at 6pm), go to the online booking system. It's well worth the £15 cost for 2 hours in the place where every F56 is born!
Although we weren't supposed to notice, we saw the robot welders making the F55 (5 door) too, and were told that they are currently making 10 per shift for the launch.
Currently, the new robot welding area (staffed by just 90 people) is running at about 30% of capacity... about 300 F56 cars per day. This will increase over the next two years as the F55 & F54 (Clubman) are launched.
By comparison to the various Mark 2 MINI Models still in production, the F56 looks very much more sophisticated under the exterior panels - and it was good to see the quality control in action. Laser alignment & measurement at various points on the line, plus panel gaps are manually checked on every car and must be 4mm exactly.
In addition, a random selection is made of 10% of the cars produced, and these are subjected to an even more intensive QC Check.
Thoroughly Recommended
We were shown around by John - a now retired guy of wisdom & wit who started working there in the 60s.
If you live near enough to take a tour (normally 3 per day - last tour at 6pm), go to the online booking system. It's well worth the £15 cost for 2 hours in the place where every F56 is born!
Although we weren't supposed to notice, we saw the robot welders making the F55 (5 door) too, and were told that they are currently making 10 per shift for the launch.
Currently, the new robot welding area (staffed by just 90 people) is running at about 30% of capacity... about 300 F56 cars per day. This will increase over the next two years as the F55 & F54 (Clubman) are launched.
By comparison to the various Mark 2 MINI Models still in production, the F56 looks very much more sophisticated under the exterior panels - and it was good to see the quality control in action. Laser alignment & measurement at various points on the line, plus panel gaps are manually checked on every car and must be 4mm exactly.
In addition, a random selection is made of 10% of the cars produced, and these are subjected to an even more intensive QC Check.
Thoroughly Recommended
