The last link between the Cowley car plant and Rover has been broken with the production of the last Rover 75 executive saloon in Oxford.

The last car rolled off the line yesterday afternoon marking the end of an era and the beginning of a new stage in the plant's history as the home of the new Mini.

The award-winning Rover 75 luxury car, launched last year, was acknowledged as the highest-quality car ever to come off the assembly lines at Cowley.

Now, just 12 months after it entered the showrooms, the complete body production and final car assembly lines for Rover's flagship 75 model are to be dismantled and moved by road to Rover Group's Longbridge factory in Birmingham, which will continue to build the car.

While the Rover 75 lines are removed, similar equipment to build the new Mini will moved from Birmingham to Cowley. Dr Herbert Diess, managing director of BMW's Mini plant at Cowley, said: "This double switch will be one of the biggest transfers of industrial plant and equipment ever to take place in Britain."

The 2,400 employees at Cowley have been working flat out to build up a stock of 2,600 75s and 6,600 bodies to carry Rover over the break in production. They now have a nine-week holiday on full pay while the assembly lines are switched.

Four hundred workers will transfer temporarily from Cowley to Longbridge to oversee the Rover 75 move. And 700 workers at Cowley are being offered training in Germany as the build-up begins to the launch of the new Mini, due to make its debut in September.