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MINI celebrates 100 years of car production in Oxford

MINI will be celebrating a century of car production in Oxford on 28th March 2013, 100 years since the first Bullnose Morris Oxford was produced. It’s 100 years since the first Bullnose Morris Oxford rolled out on 28th March 1903, since when 11,655,000 cars have been built – with as many as 28,000 people employed in its heyday – and even Tiger Moth planes and Iron Lungs built alongside 80,000 repairs to Spitfires and Hurricanes during WWII. What is now MINI’s Plant Oxford was founded by William Morris – and Morris Motors kept control until 1952 – and has been owned and run by BMC, then British Motor Holdings (when Jaguar arrived), British Leyland (when Leyland Trucks, Triumph and Rover joined), nationalisation in the 1970s saw a variety of names, Rover Group arrived in 1986 and was subsequently privatised and sold in 1994 to BMW.

Jaguar/Land Rover Virtual Reality Center

Jaguar Land Rover has opened a new 'Virtual Reality Center' at the Design and Engineering Center in Gaydon, UK. The 'state-of-the-art' design facility draws on advanced audio visual technologies with the projection power of the world's highest resolution projectors to significantly speed up product development cycles following an investment of £2 million. The new Virtual Reality Center allows engineers and designers to see and interact with life-size, three-dimensional models of vehicles and components, reducing the need for physical prototypes.

Group 20 supercar club wound up by court

By Peter Adams (third photograph by Medway Messenger) Motor Industry 05 June 2009 14:54 Another supercar club has reached the end of the road, joining a growing list of top-end supercar rental businesses that have collapsed in the recession. Group 20 has been wound up by the courts, along with sister car finance companies Vehicle Options Ltd and Vehicle Options Fleet Ltd.All three companies were investigated by the Insolvency Service after complaints, CAR can reveal.Group 20 supercar club: what went wrong?The supercar club started trading in 2006 and used a network of franchisees to sell membership to the club. Over time, Group 20 expanded to boast a rental list of exotica worth around £2 million; local newspaper reports in the Medway Messenger reveal Group 20 boasted a Lamborghini Gallardo, Porsche 911, Bentley Continental GTC and, most impressively, a Zonda F Roadster on its books.However, the Companies Investigation Branch of the Insolvency Service found that Group 20 and its parent company had numerous ‘misleading business practices’.