Mini Factory Tour

We spent this morning at the MINI factory at Oxford, on their factory tour - a present from my brother with whom we've just been staying near Reading. The tour was fascinating - even my Editor really enjoyed it and she's not particularly a "car person". Our guide was a young Malaysian lad who's doing a masters degree in architecture and earning some money working part-time as a guide - he was excellent. We knew they used a lot of robots, but the degree of automation is quite astonishing - although they still have a workforce of several hundred. Watching the robots at work was mind-boggling.
 
Photos are strictly forbidden in the factory (even mobile phones have to be locked away) but there's an adjacent museum where photos are encouraged. The blip collage is centred round a shot of the drawing by Alex Issigonis (designer of the original iconic 1960s Mini) - I gather it was sketched on a table napkin! Top left is M471NNB, a Mini Cooper SPi driven successfully by Daniel Harper between 1995 and 1997 in a variety of rallies. Top right is the Mini-based Outspan Orange car - a photo of which was also in the museum (it must be one of the most fun cars in existence!). Bottom right is one of the newest Mini versions, an electric hybrid Mini Cooper Countryman (they're about to start selling a fully electric Mini, one of which we saw being driven off the production line). Bottom left is a "retired" welding robot.
 
After the tour we drove via the lovely town of Marlborough to Chippenham, to stay the night and visit one of the "girls" I used to work with when I did a lot of work with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists in the years up to my retirement . She had to retire early last year owing to ill health and now lives here: she & her husband are delightful and we had a lovely catch-up meal.