{"id":446,"date":"2008-02-13T00:16:38","date_gmt":"2008-02-13T04:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mini.local\/blog\/index.php?entry=entry080212-231638"},"modified":"2008-02-13T00:16:38","modified_gmt":"2008-02-13T04:16:38","slug":"the-plant-oxford-tour-building-the-mini-cooper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/?p=446","title":{"rendered":"The Plant Oxford Tour: Building the MINI Cooper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"images\/plant-oxford-mini.jpg\" width=\"331\" height=\"220\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" id=\"img_float_left\" \/>We planned ahead to make a day trip of traveling to Oxford and visiting BMW Group&#039;s Plant Oxford, home of the final assembly of the MINI Cooper and it&#039;s variations.<br \/><br clear=all><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/89037503@N00\/2244568421\/\" target=\"_blank\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2202\/2245360322_eb21cb6457_m.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" id=\"img_float_left\" \/><\/a>At the start of the tour, you&#039;re asked to put on a &#8220;lab coat&#8221; and safety glasses before you can go inside.  We later found out that it was for real protection as we&#039;d be a few feet away from the robots and machinery that moves and welds the body panels together for the car.  Sparks did fly!<br \/><br clear=all><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/89037503@N00\/2245360882\/\" target=\"_blank\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2055\/2245360882_883ba25795_m.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" id=\"img_float_left\" \/><\/a>In the welcome area, there are a couple original Mini&#039;s.  That&#039;s a picture of me next to them so you can get a sense of scale of the original one.  (Curious to know how much bigger the  new MINI is?  <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:MINIandClassicMini.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" >See here.<\/a>)<br \/><br clear=all><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/89037503@N00\/2244568097\/\" target=\"_blank\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2413\/2244568097_6e88c61676_m.jpg\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" id=\"img_float_left\" \/><\/a>Also featured was one of the MINI&#039;s from The Italian Job. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/89037503@N00\/2244568199\/\" target=\"_blank\" >See inside this car for something unusual, two steering wheels!<\/a>)<br \/><br clear=all><br \/>Although we weren&#039;t allowed to take pictures during the tour, I&#039;ve found a web site where someone was obviously allowed to do just that (ok, they&#039;re press shots).  Take a look at what goes into making the MINI Cooper.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mini2.com\/2006\/09\/13\/start-of-production-of-the-new-mini-at-plant-oxford\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Link.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We planned ahead to make a day trip of traveling to Oxford and visiting BMW Group&#039;s Plant Oxford, home of the final assembly of the MINI Cooper and it&#039;s variations.At the start of the tour, you&#039;re asked to put on a &#8220;lab coat&#8221; and safety glasses before you can go inside. We later found out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biosrhythm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}