The BMW Group has decided to invest 200 million euros in their Rosslyn plant, a huge pile of by any standards. The money is said to be primarily for the expansion of the existing structure and manufacturing facilities but the cash injection will also aid the linked parts supply industry.

At the moment BMW’s Rosslyn plant can produce 60,000 units a year but the upgrades will increase production capacity to 87,000 units a year when completed. Furthermore to physical production capacity increases roughly 1,100 workers will undergo training at an 18 month advanced training course which should help the plant run even more efficiently.

“This investment is a clear sign of the BMW Group’s commitment to South Africa as a location and of its confidence in the growth of this economic region. In the current difficult economic situation in particular, we are standing by our belief in a corporate policy based on sustainability. We are providing a stimulus for further market development, to secure jobs and to strengthen the country of South Africa”, Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, emphasised in Munich.

Reithofer isn’t lying either because BMW has been represented in South Africa since 1968, and the Rosslyn plant founded in 1975 was BMW’s first manufacturing facility outside of Germany. Nowadays the South African arm of BMW produces 3 series vehicles for the local market as well as a numerous export markets such as the USA, Canada, sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

In other BMW news have very strangely declared that their illustrious Roundel emblem wasn’t actually inspired by a spinning aircraft propeller against the backdrop of a blue sky. This despite that certainly being the case, always has been. A BMW spokesman, Tom Plucinsky, has come out and said that even BMW for some time believed that the logo was aviation inspired. That might have something to do with that being the case but anyway…..

BMW now claim that the true origins of the Roundel stem from the state colours of Bavaria, the home of BMW. The confusion first arose when a 1929 advertisement used the logo as the propellor of an aircraft and it took off from there. I’m not convinced and even if it is true that the Roundel is merely Bavaria’s colours I will continue to believe in the propellor.

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