50 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 7 AUGUST 2019
f you thought of MIR A
pr e t t y muc h a s a t e s t
track in the Midlands,
you wouldn’t be alone.
When it was taken over
b y Japa ne s e f i r m Hor i ba i n 2 01 5 , T he
Telegraph’s first paragraph called the
Nuneaton company a “car test track
and development centre that has
served as a playground for motoring
shows like Top Gear and Fifth Gear”.
The set of tracks it was known
for were laid over the former RAF
Lindley’s runways and taxiways
when that was re-purposed to
become the government-backed
Motor Industry Research
A s s o c i at ion’s ba s e i n 19 4 8. W he n t he
c h a i r m a n of A u s t i n c a me t o op e n
the site officially, he brought a pair of
ceremonial scissors, not knowing the
I
M D h a d a r r a n ge d t o blow t he t ap e
apart with explosives.
Back then MIRA was a few
runways and taxiways, a control
tower and one hangar. When I
started coming here about 12 yearsago, because it’s where Autocar
frequently conducts its performance
tests, the tower’s first f loor was
still where you signed on to use
the tracks. And I’m pretty sure the
glass lookout on top was being
used by a staffer as a greenhouse.
It w a sn’t t h at M I R A , i nc lud i n g
the 1950s-built laboratories and
offices at the front of the site,
didn’t have enough work. It had
s o muc h it w a s at c apa c it y. But t he
place needed to spend hundreds
of m i l l ion s of p ou nd s it d id n’t
have on infrastructure.
The Hor iba MIR A faci l it y i n t he Mid la nd s is more t ha n just a prov i ng g rou nd – it’s
a global hub of cutting-edge automotive development. Matt Prior takes the tour
PHOTOGR A PHY MAX EDLESTON
THIS IS NOT A TEST
Some came – the control tower
moved to a new building, at least
- but it needed more, which is why
MIRA began pitching itself to
investors at the start of the decade
and eventually found the right buyerin the Japanese company Horiba,
who paid £85 million for it in 2015.
Declan (^) Allen (left) sh
ows off MIRA’s facilities
As an outsider – sometimes as a
staffer – there’s an unknown about
takeovers: are they asset-stripping?
Will jobs go? Not in this case. Not
a bit of it. The investment since has
been staggering.
Predominantly, Horiba makes
precision testing equipment,
everything from spectrometers
used on antique artworks to
gas analysers that identify
hazardous elements in waste.
It ow n s v a r iou s t e s t c e nt r e s ,
too – including automotive ones
in Germany and the US – and in
MIRA it found a match.
“Why did they want little old
MIRA?” asks Horiba MIRA’s
managing director, Declan
Allen. “They wanted application
experience, and being a long-◊