Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Honda cutting production in Swindon again – 500 jobs at risk

Honda is cutting another 500 jobs in Swindon It’s only a year since Honda announced 800 job cuts at Swindon (which eventually was 550) and now they’re about to cut a further 500 as weak demand – particularly in Europe – sees the Swindon plant producing just half the cars it could. The plan is to cut shifts from 3 to 2 a day, which will result in the loss of 340 permanent jobs and 160 temporary ones, and production will be centred on just one production line to increase efficiency and flexibility. The Swindon Plant – which builds the Civic, Civic Tourer, CR-V and Jazz (and the Civic Type-R from next year) – has been hard hit by the slump in European sales in the last five years and, despite still strong UK sales, production levels of 120,000 cars a year – just half of the Swindon capacity – are not enough to sustain the current staffing levels.

President Obama’s Cadillac grounded on a speed bump in Dublin

President Obama's Cadillac grounded in Ireland Americans take no chances when their leader travels abroad. After all, no other country has a leader so they couldn’t possibly know how to organise things. So the President of the United States travels the world on Air Force One, his very own Jumbo Jet capable of fending off attacks from any direction (at least if the President is Harrison Ford).

Ford B-Max set for Geneva 2011

The Ford B-Max crossover, based on the Iosis Concept (pictured), will debut at Geneva 2011 The Ford Fusion arrived in 2002 as a stretched version of the Ford Fiesta – a mini MPV. And for a while it did pretty well in the sales charts, reaching a peak in 2007 as second only to Vauxhall’s Meriva. But its slide since then has been significant and last year it languished in fifth place with sales of 30,000.