BMW will work with French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroën to produce a new family of small four-cylinder gasoline engines that will power the next-generation Minis as well as future Peugeot and Citroën models.
Engine parts will be machined exclusively at PSA's Douvrin plant in northern France, and assembled at each partner's facilities — Douvrin for Peugeot Citroën and Hams Hall in central England for Mini — to make it easier to supply each manufacturer's car plants. PSA is spending $400 million at Douvrin on a new modular production system that will produce 2,500 engines a day — an engine every 26 seconds.
The Hams Hall engines will replace the Mini's current gasoline engines, which come from a joint BMW-DaimlerChrysler plant in Brazil. The future of this factory will now be in serious doubt following the switch.
BMW hasn't confirmed yet whether the next-generation Mini, due in 2008, will also have PSA-developed diesel engines, but it looks increasingly likely that will be the case. Diesel Minis are powered by Toyota engines at present, but these are shipped to Britain from Japan — hardly the most cost-effective way of making cars.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=106167
Last edited by MrFatbooty; Aug 22, 2005 at 04:27 PM.