MINI Plant Oxford, manufacturing and spiritual home of the MINI, temporarily halted production as factory workers felt the force of the UK’s current cold snap.  While some workers did manage to show on 6th January, the decision was made to halt production as the chilly temperatures showed no signs of letting up and staff struggled to arrive on site.  Production resumed the evening of 7th January.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Good news came this morning courtesy of the SMMT, who have reported their December 2009 monthly, as well as 2009 yearly sales figures for the UK motor industry.  MINI UK notched up an impressive 3,859 sales in December 2009, representing an increase of over 1,500 vehicles (66.6%) on December 2008’s 2,317 MINIs sold. This figure represented a UK vehicle market share of 2.56 percent.  Recent strong sales have helped MINI claim seventh place in new car sales for the 2009 calendar year in the UK, with about 840 more vehicles sold than the eighth placed BMW 3 Series range.  For the full year MINI has achieved a UK new car market share of two percent, with just shy of 40,000 new MINIs sold. This figure represents a fall of a shade over two percent compared to 2008 MINI sales in the UK. Overall UK new vehicle registrations fell 6.4%, however private registrations were up 13.7% compared like for like with 2008s figures, and the lion’s share of MINIs sales are to private buyers.  MINIs bounce-back and relatively minor yearly sales decrease, not to mention charting at number seven in the UK for new car sales for the year, will certainly lead to more joy than gloom for the bosses at BMW, and should provide a sunny antidote the the gloomy British weather currently affecting MINI production.  Production has resumed as of Thursday evening, due to a huge effort from workers at the plant. Hats off also to those who had trouble getting to the plant, many on foot over several miles. Good ol’ Dunkirk Spirit.

You can read the original switchback.com article here.