GERMAN car maker BMW Group, owner of the Mini plant in Cowley, Oxford, has unveiled a massive drop in its fortunes.

The company has reported a £175m pre-tax loss for the first three months of this year.

This reverses a £568m before-tax profit achieved in the first quarter of 2008.

New car deliveries to customers also fell 21.2 per cent from 351,787 in the first quarter of 2008 to 277,264 in the same period this month. Car production fell a massive 34 per cent from 405,595 to 267,637.

The group also announced that 43,592 Cowley-built Minis had been delivered to customers this year, compared to 58,054 last year – a drop of 24.9 per cent.

BMW says that its worldwide workforce shrunk 7.3 per cent from 106,887 on March 31 last year to 99,112 including more than 1,200 agency staff at the Cowley plant.

In a statement, it said the group’s first quarter performance had been impaired by the “ongoing reluctance of consumers to spend and by high refinancing costs.”

It added: “A whole range of efficiency improvement measures are being implemented at great pace on both the cost and the revenues side to enable BMW Group to overcome the current crisis.”

Mini plant spokesman Angela Standgroom was unable to comment on the effect of the losses.