Cox Marine: Inside the Build Virtual Factory Tour

Cox Marine designs, develops and builds diesel outboard motors at its factory at Brighton City Airport, including the CXO300. The factory runs as a line: parts arrive in Goods in, the cylinder heads, powerheads and transmissions are built and tested, the three sections are brought together at the final marriage station, and the finished outboard leaves from Goods out. Cox wanted a tour that would show skilled candidates what working there looks like, without an open day or a walk round a live production floor.

We photographed the factory in 360 from the front of the building to dispatch. The tour is one of our bespoke 360 virtual tours, called “Inside the build”: eight stations in the order an outboard is built, plus a look inside a test cell, in an interface designed around Cox’s charcoal, teal and red and the angled stripe from its logo. Below we walk through each feature and why it is there.

Start the build

The tour opens on the front of the factory with the Cox logo, one line on what the tour is, a round “Start the build” button styled like an ignition switch, and all eight stations listed so visitors can go straight to the part of the line that interests them.

Eight stations, in build order

Each station has a numbered panel with its stage of the build, from Arrival and Parts arrive through Sub-assembly, Assembly and Testing to Final assembly and Dispatch. Previous and next buttons, and a marker in the scene, walk visitors along the line in order, so the tour follows an outboard through the factory rather than a set of rooms.

A rev counter for build progress

In the corner, a dial drawn like a rev counter shows how far along the line the visitor is, with the needle moving from 1 to 8 and a red line at the end. Each number on the dial is a button, so it doubles as quick navigation.

The line

“The line” opens every station as a card on a conveyor belt, with its number, stage and photo. The current station is marked “You are here” and stations already visited are ticked. On a phone the belt becomes a vertical list.

A spec sheet for each station

Each station has a spec sheet, opened from the panel or from a marker in the scene. It uses Cox’s own descriptions: the ten stations on the powerhead line and the tracked, Wi-Fi connected tooling behind its “no faults forward” approach, the four test cells with their test tanks and dynamometers, and the transmission line, where each transmission’s propeller spline is spun to 4,000 rpm. A strip at the bottom shows where the station sits on the line.

Inside a test cell

At the test cells, a “See inside” marker steps through the window into one of the cells. It sits on the line as 05+, a short detour from station 05, with a back button to return to the line.

Build complete

The last station is Goods out, where finished outboards are boxed for shipping. The panel reads “Build complete” and offers to start again from the front of the building.

Designed for a phone

Candidates often look on a phone. On a small screen the welcome stacks, the station panel and dial sit at the bottom of the view, and spec sheets open as a full-screen card.

Self hosted, with no platform fee

Like our other bespoke tours, this one is delivered as a self-contained website that Cox can link from its careers pages and job adverts, with no annual platform subscription for the tour itself. If you would like something similar for your site, take a look at our factory virtual tours or get in touch.

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