For the next nine months we’ll be putting our Mini Clubman through its paces and giving you an invaluable look at what it’s like to own and drive one of BMW’s quirkiest products. But before getting our hands on the little wagon we had to go through the same decision-making process every other new Mini owner has enjoyed.

We were already sold on the Chilli Pack, which boasts 16-inch alloys, sports steering wheel, front fog lights, sports seats and an on-board computer, but asked you to select the body colour and interior trim, plus one optional extra, just to liven things up a bit.

You went for the extremely stylish combination of Astro Black with a contrasting silver roof and rear pillars. Inside the sport seats are also black, while the dash you went for features brushed alloy inserts. And as for that added extra, you very wisely chose the excellent panoramic sunroof.

Want an EXCLUSIVE sneak peek behind the scenes of Mini production? Click here for more images

Not content with getting our hands on a hot new Clubman, we wanted to actually see how these iconic cars are put together and so took a trip up to BMW’s Cowley plant in Oxfordshire.

Web Editor Adrian Higgins goes behind the scenes at Cowley:

The Mini construction process is split in to three areas – bodyshop, paintshop and assembly - and while it takes around 36 hours for a car to go from thin air to finished article, actually assembling each vehicle only takes around six hours!

The Mini is constructed from up to 425 individual body panels, which are pressed in BMW’s Swindon plant before being transported to the Oxford bodyshop.

Inside, 280 robots clamp, twist and spin as naked metal sheets are transformed in to the instantly recognisable Mini shell thanks to some 4000 spot welds. As you can see in our video and slide show, sparks regularly fly in this place, but the military precision at work is truly astounding, and this is just the start of it.

The paintshop covers an area of 12 football pitches and boasts 20 kilometres of conveyor belts, but before actually being painted, each Mini goes through a complex preparation process, including a full brush down with ostrich feathers!

Unsurprisingly, the painting process takes up most of the time during a Mini’s birth, especially if the future owner is one of the 60 per cent that has opted for a contrasting roof. It’s here though that the military precision in place at Cowley really becomes apparent.

Want an EXCLUSIVE sneak peek behind the scenes of Mini production? Click here for more images

By the time each Mini leaves the paintshop it’s already being closely monitored and as it enters the assembly hall, the enormity of the task at hand becomes apparent.

Some 2,400 components are used to create a fully customised Mini and while some of the components, such as the dash, arrive on the line as pre-assembled units, the precision at which each vehicle arrives in unison with it’s chosen components is truly astounding.

When ordering your Mini, you have a choice of 319 exterior options and 372 interior trim options, which we’re reliably informed gives you 15,000,000,000,000,000 theoretical variants, so it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll find two identical Minis on the production line at any one time.

Should the steering wheel from Mr Jones from London’s Clubman get fitted to Herr Schmidt from Düsseldorf’s Cooper it would be an absolute disaster, but at Cowley that’s simply not allowed to happen.

The workers, or associates as BMW likes to call them, use a barcode system to tick off each stage of the assembly process and as seats, wheels, dashboards and even windscreens suddenly appear from holes in the floor and ceiling, they’re simply transferred to the car and bolted on with almost arrogant efficiency.

We followed a car very similar to ours around the assembly line and squeaked with excitement every time the correct part found its way on to the car. Having seen a bare shell at the start of the process, we watched with amazement as the fully assembled model sat at the end of the Cowley conveyor belt, whirred in to life and was actually driven away!

Want an EXCLUSIVE sneak peek behind the scenes of Mini production? Click here for more images

Coming up: The 2,000 mile test PLUS London to Paris - our car's first mini adventure...