BMW today said it will invest £250 million in its three British Mini factories.
The investment secures more than 5000 jobs. One of the German carmaker’s bosses said: “Just as Bavaria is the centre of the BMW world, so the UK is, and will remain, the hub and heart of Mini.”
The cash comes on top of a £500 million investment at Mini’s three British factories last year, and will be invested over the next three years at the German carmaker’s factory in Oxford, steel body-pressings plant at Swindon and engine production line at Hams Hall near Birmingham.
The new Mini hit car dealerships in 2001. It sold 144,000 cars in its first full year of production, and a decade on sells double that each year. In January, the marque launched its Mini Roadster, pictured, a convertible version of the Mini Coupe, which was the first two-seater Mini model.
BMW — which employs 5500 people to make Minis in the UK — today set out plans to expand its current six Mini models to 10 new ones.
The German firm said its Oxford factory, which already exports cars to about 100 countries, will be backed up by other production sites, probably at the NedCar plant in the Netherlands.
