Comments on: Factory Tours Throughout the Years

By: Kelly Odell

Kelly Odell — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 00:49:08 +0000

Help! My husband and I will be in England this May for a business trip. :-} Can you tell me if there are any factories or racing car shops that we could tour?

By: cutters

cutters — Mon, 03 May 2004 07:24:32 +0000

That was impressive…thanks

By: douglas travis

douglas travis — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 02:49:11 +0000

Thanks for your article on your tour of Plant Oxford. I will be going thru the plant on April 23rd. Your photos showed some artwork for some MINI wearables I hadn't seen. Do they have a store at the plant? If so I will have to take out a loan with the dollar being so weak against the pound. Do they have a place to secure your camera?

By: R

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 03:42:00 +0000

Would have been neet to see. Did you ever see the plant were they made/make the Super 7?……..R

By: Vanwall

Vanwall — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 03:38:16 +0000

AlanB & Stuart - Longbridge had it's share of "rectifications", I'm sure - reason enough to limit the factory tours even when I was there - but that's also one of a number of reasons many knowledgeable people have concluded BMC and later BL lost money on every Mini, something BMW seems to be avoiding. ;-) BL never did figure out how to set the right sales price, I understand, leaving plenty of pound notes on the table with every sale. Remember, at one point in the 1960's BMC had a huge percentage of English sales, especially in the Morris/Austin 1000 series, which dominated their segment of the market, and still never made a lot of dough, sadly.

R - at that point in my wanderings, I took slides almost exclusively, and have never converted them to prints, sorry. There were limits on picture taking even then, as well, and most of my shots were from the more friendly environs of Donington, Beaulieu, and the like. Someday, someday...

     BCNU,
    Rob in Dago

By: R

Tue, 06 Apr 2004 16:18:13 +0000

Thanks for the voyage interesting stuff. It's too bad you don't have any photos to go with the story.

What is this about “?”:

de ?personal? cars. The tour, such as it was, was my favorite of ?em all, just a stroll thru the ?plant? with the lads, who are still at it, BTW. It couldn?t quite beat the best tour I ever heard of, however ? the Ducati plant in the late 70?s. I heard about it from a Mi…………………….R

By: Stuart

Stuart — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 15:39:42 +0000

The ones with right hand steering and left hand wheels go to Ireland!"

Thats now so far from the truth, At Oxford in the late 70's it was quite common to find a car at the end of the track with Right Hand steering and left hand pedal sets, and two drivers trying to decide who would steer and who would operate the brake and clutch How things have moved on!

By: AlanB

AlanB — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 15:32:03 +0000

I went through the Longbridge factory in the early '80's, but was only allowed to see the Metro being made by robots. At the end of the production line, the Metro met the Minis for water testing. I asked the tour guide where the LHD Minis went in the world. He said,”The US.” I noted this was NOT true since 1967. He corrected himself by saying, “You are right! The RHDs stay here and the LHDs go to Italy and other parts of the world. The ones with right hand steering and left hand wheels go to Ireland!”