mergers and name changes, "Morris's" is still often used as the name of the car factory to this day. In 1952, Morris Motors became part of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), in 1968 BMC became British Leyland, in the 1980s the group was known as Austin Rover, in the 1990s it was Rover Group and since 2001 the factory has been owned by BMW. But the name "Morris's" is ingrained in local culture and speech habits, particularly amongst older inhabitants. By the early 1970s, over 20,000 people worked in Cowley at the vast Morris Motors and Pressed Steel Fisher plants. Unipart is also a major employer in Cowley, with premises next to the car factory. In later years Morris Motors and Pressed Steel became one company. Subsequently the Morris's site was closed down, demolished, and redeveloped as the Oxford Business Park. Cowley today The car factory is known today as Plant Oxford and is now owned by BMW and has been extensively redeveloped. It remains the largest industrial employer in Oxfordshire employing more than 4,300 people. The plant was set up in 1926 by a consortium including William Morris and the Budd Company of America and was adjacent to the Morris Motors factory. Morris and the Budd Company both pulled out of the consortium and the plant became an independent supplier of bodies and tooling to Morris and other car manufacturers across the world. The company also produced the Prestcold refrigerators. When BMW sold the Rover Group they decide to retain the Pressed Steel Fisher site and transfer the Mini from Longbridge to Cowley, enabling the Longbridge site to continue to produce all the Rover products. BMW retained ownership of the Cowley plant, formerly Pressed Steel, to build the all-new Mini that was launched in the spring of 2001. It has been the best selling car to be built at the plant since the Maestro and Montego in the 1980s. The Morris Motors factory expanded with factory complexes on both sides of the Oxford Road. Although Morris started his original work on the outskirts of the city the Cowley site quickly became the production site for high volume production. It was the original base of Morris cars when the marque was founded in 1912, and production continued at the factory until 1982, with models including the Morris Minor, Morris Oxford, Riley Motor and Wolseley Motors cars. The Morris marque was